RISA People

Dr Meiqi XIN (Maggie) obtained her bachelor’s degree in preventive medicine from Sun Yat-Sen University. She further received PhD and postdoctoral training in public health at the Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

As a behavioural scientist, Prof. Xin is dedicated to leveraging theoretical and methodological advancements in behavioural medicine to design effective, scalable interventions that motivate and empower vulnerable populations to proactively engage in disease prevention and management. She has a particular interest in healthy ageing. Her research aims to promote health behaviours (e.g., active lifestyles, uptake of preventive care, help-seeking) among older adults and their caregivers in community settings, with the goal of enhancing their capacity for self-management and maintaining independence in daily life.

Specifically, her work focuses on integrating advanced behaviour change techniques with digital technologies to facilitate motivational and volitional processes underlying health behaviour initiation and maintenance. In a GRF-funded RCT, she aims to develop a fully automated chatbot intervention that integrates narrative persuasion and implementation intentions to promote influenza vaccination behaviours among community-dwelling older adults. In another HMRF-funded study, she aims to develop a digital version of WHO Self-Help Plus, augmented with engagement-facilitation strategies, to support family caregivers of older adults in incorporating ACT-based stress management skills in everyday life.

In addition to intervention research, she conducts epidemiological studies on the psychosocial mechanisms underlying behavioural and mental health outcomes. Her work focuses on examining how lay people mentally represent and respond to health threats within community contexts. In an HMRF-funded cohort study, she aims to investigate the illness perceptions and professional help-seeking behaviours for insomnia among over 1000 community-dwelling older adults with chronic insomnia symptoms and their families.

• Bachelor of Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen University
• Doctor of Philosophy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong