The newly established four-year Medical Sciences & Translational Research PhD with integrated studies in Engagement for Impact Programme will combine medical science and translational research projects with integrated and credited teaching in science communication, public engagement, patient involvement, data design and informatics, via established MSc courses and/or new Engagement for Impact courses. Our vision is to teach a generation of researchers equipped to address and solve real-world problems through excellent science and who have the engagement and impact skills we believe will give them an edge in their future careers https://www.ed.ac.uk/inflammation-research/postgraduate-training/phd-programme
This potential PhD project, selectable by successful applicants to this Programme, is supervised by Dr Sarah Stock (https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/sarah-stock(69f5cf23-f1d6-491b-8992-53f8e26bca73).html ) at the Usher Institute Centre for Medical Informatics, with co-supervisors Dr Rosemary Townsend and Dr Honghan Wu
Project Summary:
In the UK around one in 200 babies die in pregnancy or the newborn period. Stillbirth and preterm (birth <37 weeks gestation) are the main contributors to these deaths. The aim of this project is to develop and validate risk prediction tools for pregnancy complications such as preterm birth, stillbirth and caesarean birth. You will interrogate large datasets containing clinical information about pregnancy and newborn health, comparing different model development approaches e.g. logistic regression and other machine learning techniques. You will work with clinicians and parent groups to ensure the risk predictors are relevant to their decisional needs, and incorporate them into decision aids which can help shared decision making and be implemented in electronic health records for use at point of care.
Engagement for Impact:
An aim of this project is to produce tools to help shared decision making about care in pregnancy. Making treatment decisions in pregnancy is particularly complex. Decisions are often made on a background of internal conflict (between needs of the mother and of the developing baby) and external pressures (strong societal/cultural influences on childbirth; limited healthcare resource). Opinions from different healthcare providers (midwives, doctors, doulas) can oppose. New legislation (Montgomery versus Lanarkshire) means there is a legal requirement of healthcare providers to ensure parents are aware of ‘material risks’, but there is tension between full discussion and engendering fear.
This project will afford multiple opportunities for parental, clinician and policy maker engagement. For example, collaboration with maternity service users and providers could prioritise the most relevant predictive models to develop, advise on how risk information is best presented and how to disseminate decision aids. Engagement with NHS Digital and Electronic health records companies could help ensure tools can be implemented effectively. Engaging with government (e.g. Scottish Government Stillbirth Subgroup) and guideline developers (e.g. NICE, RCOG) could help ensure the research is impactful. The supervisors have close links to pregnancy charities such as Tommy’s and SANDS, and collaborations with these groups could further enable engagement with maternity service users and policy makers. An existing collaboration with a theatre company (DirtyMarket) could allow additional opportunities for wider public engagement.
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