Dr. Palfreyman's research emphasises the interconnectedness of SRHR, maternal health, interpersonal and self-directed violence and mental health. Her current mixed-methods research aims to develop adaptable, feasible packages of care to support the mental health of survivors of violence against women, modern slavery and conflict in South Asia. 

She is part of a multi- disciplinary, -institution, and -country NIHR-funded Global Health Research Group generating new survivor-led evidence to shape promising mental health responses for those affected by diverse forms of violence in Afghanistan, India and Sri Lanka. Co-leading the Sri Lanka programme of work, she is supporting an ambitious nationally representative survey capturing the epidemiology of violence and mental distress amongst adolescents (15-24), and qualitative evidence generation on survivors' needs, priorities and barriers to psychosocial healing in the wake of GBV.  

Dr. Palfreyman has worked in Sri Lanka for nearly a decade on a variety of issues, most earnestly in centring the neglected female experience of self-harm and suicide. Pushing for a gender-conscious revolution in suicidology, her research argues that a continuation of the current approach to suicide prevention is not only insufficient, but potentially detrimental to the project of reducing risk and social suffering for women and girls in Sri Lanka and beyond.