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My PhD Title: Investigating how linked health and council data can advance our understanding of the social determinants of multimorbidity and inform service provision
Supervisor: Dr Jessica Sheringham, Dr Manuel Gomes, Professor David Osborn, Dr Helen McDonald, Sue Hogarth
Lay summary:
Multimorbidity - broadly defined as the co-occurrence of multiple long-term conditions within the same individual – is a major public health challenge. To date, research typically considers multimorbidity in a biomedical sense even though social factors greatly influence its extent and nature. This thesis examines how social determinants operating at the household level, such as household tenure, are associated with different types (or clusters) of multimorbidity.
Local Authorities hold an array of information on the social circumstances of their residents, such as housing and social care provision. As we move towards more integrated care, local areas are linking the health and council records of their residents. In addition to investigating the social determinants of multimorbidity, analysis of these linked data can be used to investigate population groups with the highest levels of need and plan care services accordingly. However our understanding of how senior leaders make decisions using data is unclear.
Using a mixed-method approach my thesis will investigate how linked health and Local Authority data can advance our understanding of the household-level social determinants of multimorbidity and inform how senior leaders make decisions that have implications across the health and care system.
My Background
Prior to starting my PhD in September 2018 I completed an MSc in Clinical Mental Health Sciences at UCL’s Division of Psychiatry and a BA in Neuroscience at The University of Oxford. Whilst at the Division of Psychiatry I worked on a project that explored how small area deprivation is associated with attitudes towards mental illness in a large sample of individuals living in private households in England.
Publications
Ingram, E., Jones, R., Schofield, P., & Henderson, C. (2019). Small area deprivation and stigmatising attitudes towards mental illness: a multilevel analysis of Health Survey for England (2014) data. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 1-11.
Contact details
Email: e.ingram.17@ucl.ac.uk
Twitter: @LizzieIngram11