About
Chiara Dall'Ora is Associate Professor in Health Workforce Research at the University of Southampton, where she leads the Health Workforce & Systems research group within the School of Health Sciences. She is also Deputy Theme Lead for the NIHR ARC Wessex Data and Technology Theme.
Her research aims to improve workforce policy, service delivery, and patient care by generating evidence on how health and care systems can best support their workforce. Her programme of research focuses specifically on staffing configurations, working hours, and workforce deployment. She uses large-scale routine data to understand how staffing models, working conditions, workforce policies, and service innovations affect staff wellbeing, healthcare quality, and health system performance. Increasingly, her work focuses on co-designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions that translate research evidence into practice. Her research is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Health workforce organisation
- Shift work
- Occupational health - burnout
- Occupational health - sickness absence
- Patient safety
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
My education contribution is strongly linked to my research, where I design and deliver courses around patient safety and workforce wellbeing. My education contribution shapes my research, where I co-develop research with students in our programmes.
I am passionate about supporting our students read and critically appraise research, so I have developed a video series in partnership with Elsevier to aid students move their first steps in understanding research: Research video series
As well as a stats-focused tutorial commissioned by the National Centre for Research Methods, to support students reading and interpreting tables from quantitative studies: Descriptive data and inferential statistics by Chiara Dall’Ora and Interpreting tables reporting tests of association and tests of effectiveness by Chiara Dall’Ora
My current teaching contribution is:
- Theme Lead for Influencing Innovation & Change - Human Factors & Patient Safety theme
- Leading sessions linked to my research:
- Health Workforce Wellbeing & Burnout
- Safe Staffing & Resource Allocation
- Patient Safety for Postgraduate Students
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Chiara qualified as a Registered Nurse after completing her Bachelor Degree in Italy, at the Universita' degli Studi di Milano Bicocca in 2011. In 2013 she gained a Masters Degree in Nursing and Midwifery Sciences at the Universita' degli Studi di Milano Bicocca.
In 2018, she was awarded a PhD in Health Sciences at the University of Southampton, where she was then employed as a research fellow. Since 2023, Chiara has been an Associate Professor within the School of Health Sciences, where she splits her time between research and education.
Prizes
- IJNS Rosemary Crow Award (2016)
- Best abstract session presentation HSRUK 2018 (2018)
- NIHR20 Research Leaders Prizes (2026)