Farr London researcher awarded Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship 

Academic Clinical Lecturer, Dr Rob Aldridge, has been awarded a 5-year Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship. The project will focus on 'Public health data science to investigate and improve migrant health'.

Lay Summary

There are currently eight million migrants living in the UK and approximately 600,000 new arrivals annually. However, we know very little about the health problems new migrants face. Migrants experience large changes in terms of the people they live and work with, the type of housing they live in, the food they eat and the amount of exercise they take. These factors, compounded by inequalities in wealth, mean that despite being young and healthy when migrating, they are particularly vulnerable to subsequently becoming ill. 

This study aims to understand what the health needs of migrants are, how their personal and environmental risk factors for becoming unhealthy change, and to test whether these risks can be improved. 

Study 1 will use data on over one million migrants who came to the UK before 2017 to see what diseases they had when they saw a GP or hospital doctor. Migrants arriving after 2017 will be approached to take part in study 2 which uses mobile phones to follow them up and see how their risks for ill health change. Finally, study 3 will develop and pilot a web-based personalised health quiz to see whether it can be used to improve migrant health.