AIM CISC Researcher attends Annual Conference

I recently had the exciting opportunity of attending the 2025 annual conference of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) at Detroit, USA which held from 24^th – 28^th March 2025. My participation in this event was enabled by the magnanimous funding provided by the AIM-CISC project. 

During this conference, I presented a paper entitled “Spatial heterogeneities in neighbourhood attributes associated with multimorbidity prevalence in Wales: A study using multiscale geographically weighted regression modelling”. The key message of my presentation was that associations between area attributes and multimorbidity prevalence vary from one neighbourhood to another, based on the characteristics of adjacent neighbourhoods. Therefore, some area characteristics (such as ‘rural town and fringe’ or white communities) can be positively associated with multimorbidity prevalence in some neighbourhoods but negative associated with the same outcome in other neighbourhoods. 

One implication is that in regions with disparate neighbourhood characteristics, it is essential for public health interventions to be adequately tailored to the peculiarities of each neighbourhood type. My presentation stimulated some feedback from the participants, which would go a long way in informing the ongoing revision of the manuscript on this study. This included questions around the methodology (such as effects of false discovery rate of the model) and the policy relevance of the study. During this conference, I also had the chance to attend many other sessions, especially those concerned with effects of place on population health outcomes. Lastly, the conference provided me with the much-cherished opportunity to network with various practitioners from different countries and cultural backgrounds.

In sum, this event has been an extremely rewarding experience for me, one that has greatly enhanced not just my academic career, but also my overall personal development.