Claire Garnett is a researcher in the field of alcohol and smoking cessation, both in terms of the use of digital technologies to support behaviour change and the population level influences on these behaviours. Her research is underpinned by behavioural science and theory. She is a psychologist by background, completing her PhD in Health Psychology in 2017 before joining the UCL Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group as a Research Fellow. 

A major focus of her research is on digital interventions to reduce hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption. As part of her PhD research, they developed and evaluated a theory- and evidence-based smartphone application – Drink Less – to reduce alcohol consumption, using a systematic and iterative process drawing on evidence and theory to inform its content. Its evaluation in a preliminary trial assessed the effectiveness of individual modules. Based on these findings and user feedback, the app has been updated and improved. The Drink Less app is one of the leading alcohol reduction apps in the UK with over 70,000 unique users and an average 4.5 star rating in the Apple App Store. The app is being used to provide insights into engagement with digital interventions, predictors of alcohol reduction and what makes an effective digital intervention. She also conducts research to provide insights into population-wide influences on smoking and smoking cessation. For example: understanding the association between spontaneous quit attempts and smoking cessation success, and how smoker characteristics in England have changed over the last 10 years as smoking prevalence has fallen.

Her research contributions are indicated by a total of 45 journal articles on UCL RPS in collaboration with over 80 different co-authors. She has been successful in obtaining competitive funding as demonstrated by three grants as Principal or Co-Principal Investigator totalling £1,116,755 since 2018. She has a national and growing international reputation as demonstrated by receiving the Fred Yates Prize from the Society for the Study of Addiction (SSA) for Researcher of the Year for a significant contribution in the field of addiction research.

She has served on the Digital Medicine Expert Advisory Panel for The Topol Review: Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future and participated in a roundtable discussion on the NICE Evidence for Effectiveness Standards for Digital Health Technologies, which led to the use of Drink Less as a published case study.