06 | Population Health and Training

Respiratory diseases and infections like asthma and COPD are among the leading causes of hospital admissions and health inequalities, yet they remain too often overlooked and under-prioritised. It’s time for a new approach. One that tackles the NHS’s most pressing challenges, from reducing unscheduled care demands and easing winter pressures to addressing entrenched respiratory health inequalities.

By uniting researchers, clinicians, industry leaders, and patient voices, we are committed to delivering tangible, scalable impact that improves lives, strengthens healthcare systems, and ensures that breakthroughs reach those who need them most - not just in theory, but in practice.

The PuRe programme of work: Pulmonary rehabilitation delivered in low resource settings for people with chronic respiratory disease: the 3-arm multi-country randomised implementation PuRe trial. 

• Visit IMP2ART's website

The FRESHAIR4Life study selects and adapts air quality Interventions in five diverse settings

ERS CONNECT Clinical Research Collaboration: Developing a digital healthcare global network

When we build machine learning (ML) models for healthcare, we usually judge how good they are using stats like accuracy or sensitivity. But here is the problem: just because a model looks great on paper does not mean it will work well in a real clinic. Hospitals and clinics deal with real-world limits (there might not be enough doctors, nurses, or appointment slots to follow up on every prediction a model makes).

That is why we created a new, practical way to test and use ML models that takes these everyday challenges into account. Instead of just asking, “How accurate is this model?” we ask, “Can we actually use it here, given our resources?” Our approach helps doctors, researchers, and healthcare managers see how a model would perform in their specific setting and adjust how they use it based on what’s actually possible.

We tried this out with an asthma prediction model in three different UK clinics. Each clinic had different numbers of patients and different levels of appointment availability. We will show how tweaking the model’s decision settings (model's threshold) could help each clinic use the same model in a way that fits their unique situation. It’s all about balancing risk with what the clinic can realistically handle.

Exhibitor: Arif Budiarto

This display will showcase findings from recent research on preventing gambling and nicotine-related harm among children and young people. It combines evidence from two separate projects in which we conducted extensive consultations with school staff, students, parents/carers, and stakeholders from policy and practice. Our aim is to deepen our understanding of the risk factors and develop school-based interventions focusing on peer support and social networks.

Exhibitor: Fiona Dobbie

This poster presents the Cancer in Primary Care Group, based in the Centre for Population Health Sciences. The poster showcases the varied projects that are ongoing within the group as well as some of the recently completed studies.

Our projects cover: Lung cancer screening; cervical cancer screening; Cancer and multimorbidity; 2nd primary cancers; pancreatic cancer; HPV vaccine uptake; patients who are lost to follow-up after abnormal results; breast cancer survivorship; and the ethnography of cervical cancer survivorship.

Our work highlights issues of equity in service provision and healthcare access including rurality; ethnicity and people with experience of homelessness, transactional sex, prison, and addiction. In addition to our work in Scotland and the UK, we have ongoing and recent projects in Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan, and Botswana. The poster illustrates the impact our projects have had and introduces the staff and students involved.

Exhibitors: Mia Closs, Christine Campbell, Debbie Cavers and Laia Ventura-Garcia

This poster will describe highlights from thirteen years of partnership working with many colleagues in Malawi and Scotland and alongside the Ministry of Health to strengthen health care for women in rural areas of Malawi, specifically through provision of cervical cancer screening.

Malawi has very high rates of cervical cancer, and the highest global mortality rate. The poster will describe (through a mix of text, figures and pictures) some key features of the programme including:

• implementing screening provision in under-served rural areas, reaching over 100,000 women;
• empowerment of women through development of accessible education and awareness materials;
• increasing clinical skills of nurse providers through iterative and experiential training;
• strengthening health facilities through refurbishment and equipping of screening clinics;
• adoption of an inclusion health perspective, ensuring vulnerable and excluded women have the opportunity to access the service; and
• supporting development of national Safeguarding and mentoring policies and practice.

Exhibitor: Christine Campbell

This poster will offers an overview of the study, its aims, and a brief summary of the work packages, along with how these may influence the future of the national bowel screening programme.

How can we best use digital and data to transform the delivery of health and social care and achieve better outcomes for the people of Scotland? This new leadership programme is a key part of the answer, as outlined in Scotland’s Digital Health and Care Strategy and the Care in the Digital Age Delivery Plan.

Funded by the Scottish Government and COSLA, and designed and delivered by The University of Edinburgh in collaboration with NHS Education Scotland, the aim is to equip a new generation of leaders with the knowledge, skills and connections to drive forward transformation across health, social care and housing services.

The programme draws on expertise within the Usher Institute and our partners to deliver courses at Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert), Postraduate Diploma (PGDip) and Masters (MSc) level tailored to the needs of current and future digital leaders. With the first cohort about to start their final year of study, evidence of impact is now emerging. Come and view the poster and chat to our programme team to gain an insight into this innovative and collaborative learning journey and how it is making a difference to the design and delivery of health and social care across the country.

Exhibitor: Elaine Mowat

In Edinburgh, we are proud to be pioneers in the development of community-based primary health care, starting with the creation of the Royal Public Dispensary of Edinburgh in 1783, which ultimately led to the first Department of General Practice, and in 1963, the first Chair of General Practice in the world.

The Master of Family Medicine builds upon this strong tradition, providing an innovative online distance learning programme for international students who may otherwise find it hard to access high-quality postgraduate education in Family Medicine. Our programme directly delivers to the World Health Organisation's goals in strengthening Primary Health Care towards the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (as included in Sustainable Development Goal 3).

We aim to empower and equip individuals to provide and promote compassionate, values-based and academic family medicine for the benefit of communities around the world.  Look out for the Master of Family Medicine programme pop-up banner.  Programme team members will be available to chat, answer questions and share our passion for this work.

Exhibitors: Robin Ramsay and Lin Watson

Our postgraduate programmes aim to transform health in society by working with people, populations and data. We offer lifelong learning opportunities in epidemiology, public health, family medicine, data science for health and social care and clinical trials to international students from a wide variety of sectors.

Our posters provide an overview of our teaching offerings, our highlights, a map of where our graduates are from over the last four years, and beautiful photos of our students and staff.

Exhibitor: Michelle Evans