Cohort 1 student Romana attends the EAI PervasiveHealth Conference in Greece

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Cohort 1 student Romana Burgess attends the 16th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare in Thessaloniki, Greece. This is what she had to say about her experience:

‘It was a small scale conference with around 50 attendees, including a mixture of PhD candidates, masters students, and professors from across Europe, Asia, and America. The conference was generally concerned with the intersection between technology and healthcare. Some of the works presented covered topics such as wearable devices for tracking and monitoring, activity and gesture recognition, and human-centred design for healthcare solutions.

I presented my paper “A quantitative comparison of manual vs. automated facial coding using real life observations of fathers”; this work comprised a validation study on a facial classification software, which we used to classify fathers facial expressions during interactions with their infants. We evaluated whether the computational classification was comparable to that of a human coder. On day 2 of the conference, I gave a roughly 25 minute presentation of this work to the other attendees. The paper is due to be published in the conference proceedings in the coming weeks.

The paper served as software validation work in advance of my final project, which involves linking facial expressions to depressed mood and other mental health issues. So this study (and it’s acceptance to the conference) was vital for the end goal of my overall PhD.’

https://pervasivehealth.eai-conferences.org/2022/

Cohort 4 student Veronica publishes in the British Journal of Midwifery

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Cohort 4 student Veronica Blanco Gutierrez publishes a journal article entitled ‘Culture and breastfeeding support’ in the British Journal of Midwifery.

Veronica had this to say about the paper: ‘This article discusses the importance of taking into consideration different cultural aspects of every women when health professionals, particularly midwives, provide breastfeeding support. It is vital for the provision of breastfeeding care to have social determinants of health, such as culture, at the heart of care. Adequate and tailored breastfeeding support is key in the provision of care. I am very passionate about breastfeeding support and how to improve the breastfeeding experience for women and their babies. I am hoping to undertake research on improving breastfeeding support to improve health outcomes.’

Link To the Paper: https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/bjom.2022.30.12.713

 

 

Cohort 1 students Romana, Joe, Morgan & Bridget publish in Human-Computer Interaction Journal

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Cohort 1 students Romana Burgess, Joe Mathews, Morgan Jenkinson and Bridget Ellis publish a Journal Article entitled ‘Fathers, Young Children and Technology: Changes in Device Use and Family Dynamics During the COVID-19 UK Lockdown’ in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Journal.

They had the following to say about their experience:

‘The coronavirus lockdown measures meant that families spent more time together than ever before, thanks to the shift to online schooling and working from home. By speaking with fathers during this time of stress, uncertainty, and change, we looked to understand changing perceptions of technology use and fatherhood, and we began to consider the design of father-supporting technologies to support fathers.

Our work involved two phases of semi-structured interviews, with participants recruited through social media and word of mouth. The first interviews (n=19) broadly discussed technology and home life during the pandemic, and fathers highlighted challenges in screen viewing, family dynamics, activity idea generation and self-care. Informed by these challenges, we designed four prototype apps which were used as prompts in follow-up interviews (n=12) to better understand the issues in more depth.
Overall, the interviews identified significant changes and concerns related to technology use within the context of COVID-19. Fathers found themselves with changing responsibilities (e.g., home schooling, more childcare), which conflicted with their typical and traditional responsibilities (e.g., work, chores). Combined with pandemic-led stressors, these issues together amplified negative feelings associated with children’s technology use and the father’s own self-care.
The paper provides guidance for fatherhood-supporting technologies. It highlights issues with existing technologies, and the areas where these kinds of support are lacking so far. We provide recommendations based on the feedback of real fathers. Future work could use these recommendations to inform technology design for fathers in a caregiving role.’

Cohort 2 student Immi speaks at the European Digital Medicine Conference in Luxembourg

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Cohort 2 student Immi Biswas had this to say about her experience:

‘I was a speaker, and I presented my PhD project which is a part of NHS run clinical trial Rested Study investigating remote sleep monitoring in patients with Neurodegenerative diseases.

It helped me to put some of my initial research findings to the research community to make people more aware of the importance of understanding user experiences to better plan clinical trials in the future. This activity is having a positive impact on the study design and enabling me to gather richer data.’

Cohort 4 student Veronica attends the Population Health and Health Inequalities Conference in London

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Cohort 4 student, Veronica Blanco Gutierrez had this to say about her experience:

‘This event was aimed at key stakeholders and those with an interest in improving workforce capability to improve population health and in reducing health inequalities.

The general topic covered in this conference was Population Health and Health Inequalities. The event showcased new and emerging roles in population health and health inequalities and the latest education and training resources. It also facilitated an opportunity to learn about new and emerging training opportunities in population health and health inequalities and how these are helping transform the workforce.
During this event, I made new connections with experts in the field of Population Health. I was particularly interested in the work undertaken by Kumbi Kariwo, a senior NHS nurse and Equality & Inclusion Project Lead in Birmingham. I found her work on a digital intervention to diagnose different skin conditions and diseases in different skin colours truly inspirational and stimulating.
At this conference, we, Population Health Fellows, were asked to showcase our digital posters. My poster was about my journey as a Population Health fellow and my project: a Health Equity Audit on the uptake of the Covid-19 vaccine during pregnancy among different ethnic groups. Attendees were able to vote for the best poster and I was awarded the first prize. Thanks to this award, I will be to meet Professor Sir Michael Marmot for a mentoring session.
It will be a honour to meet Professor Sir Michael Marmot, a world expert leader in Population Health and Health inequalities, for a mentoring session. I am very passionate about reducing health inequalities in the provision of maternity care and improving health outcomes for underrepresented groups. Meeting with Professor Marmot will guide my project to focus on a meaningful area of Population Health research by taking into consideration his expertise and vision. I am also hoping that this meeting will provide me with useful insights about career development and aspirations in the long term future.’

Cohort 3 students Eszter, Lois and Sydney attend UCL Workshop

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Cohort 3 students Eszter Vigh, Lois Holliday and Sydney Charitos attend the ‘How to get the most out of your PPI activities’ Workshop at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

https://uclpartners.com/event/ppi-training-facilitation-how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-ppi-activities-2/

Cohort 3 student Tim publishes an Article in IEEE

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Cohort 3 student Tim Arueyingho publishes a Journal Article entitled ‘Digital Health Promotion For Fitness Enthusiasts In Africa’ in the IEEE Journal.

Tim had this to say about the publication:

‘The review paper takes a different approach in understanding the role of technology in promoting exercise among fitness enthusiasts in Africa. It begins by discussing what health promotion is and extends it to Digital Health promotion. It also differentiates between fitness enthusiasts/recreational athletes, athletes and persons who engage in fitness as a form of lifestyle modification. Thereafter, it highlights technological interventions being used by fitness enthusiasts globally before streamlining to the African context. The paper stresses on the lack of sufficient literature on interventions being used in Africa and absence of focus on fitness enthusiasts. It is an educational piece and riveting read that hopes to create awareness for gaps in literature that might be interesting points of research.

1. This paper highlights interesting gaps in academic literature that might be worth researching
2. This paper establishes the need for contextualization and afro-centric studies
3. This paper elaborates on concepts that may have been easily overlooked e.g. The difference between Fitness enthusiasts/Recreational athletes, regular gym goers, athletes and persons who visit the gym for lifestyle modification purposes
4. The paper suggests important strategies for encouraging the adoption of digital health technologies among fitness enthusiasts
5. It provides information relevant in understanding the existing landscape of fitness and Digital Health technologies’

Cohort 1 student Henry attends the European Respiratory Society (ERS) International Congress

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Henry Glyde presented thematic poster PA2728 “Exacerbation predictive modelling using real-world data from the myCOPD app” as part of the Digital health interventions in respiratory practice session at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) International Congress.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6972482477261021185/?actorCompanyId=51699863