• The NHS
• A UK university
• Another publicly funded organisation that conducts or supports clinical research

• will help you to determine if your study requires a review by an NHS REC
• will not tell you whether you need any other regulatory approvals and/or types of ethics review

cassidy.rowden@kent.gov.uk

edyta.mccallum@kent.gov.uk

paige.hurlstone@kent.gov.uk

This resource can serve as an introduction to the standards involved in research such as how to manage your research records and collect good quality data. It has examples of types of wider settings research and examples of good practice with case studies of studies such as prisons, pharmacy and schools to help learners understand the process of research.

In the resource, learners will cover:

· The importance of research in health, care and community settings

· Distinguish between different types of research in health, care and community settings

· Understand the core legal and regulatory frameworks underpinning research in health, care and community research in the UK

· Describe the importance of research records and good quality data

· Understand the requirements of safety reporting.

kimberly.olive@kent.gov.uk

However, it is a skill which can be learnt, and this eLearning module aims to guide you in how to create good research questions.

This module is only available for KCC staff - please contact phresearch@kent.gov.uk if you are outside of KCC.

There is increasing recognition in the field of health and social care research that community-engaged methods can be used throughout the research process. Therefore, individuals from all backgrounds should be involved in research from the initial thoughts, plans and what constitute the conception and design of a study.

Method

A rapid review was undertaken and the results are presented as a narrative summary. The rapid search strategy was created to retrieve both published and unpublished studies. An initial search of CINHAL, MEDLINE, ERIC, SocIndex and British Education Index was   undertaken to identify articles on the topic.

Results

The themes we derived from the analysis of the published articles were: 1) Context of the individual and peers support. This theme, highlighted that partnership identity was important for individuals it brought clarity and understanding to their role and the expectations. 2) Creating inclusive environments for diverse communities. This themes emphasised that ambient learning environment should be enabled  and co-created by the tutors and community, delivering the training and particular use of reflective practice. 3) Incorporating recruitment and retention for diverse community participation, was depended upon the individuals experiences of taking part in research and research training.

Conclusions

The analysis suggests that partnerships, peer support and context of the individual are important facilitators of inclusion of diverse communities. The design of the studies, and recruitment approaches highlighted in the rapid review such as, flyers, word of mouth, attending health fairs, and partnering with nonprofit community based organisations to sponsor targeted recruitment events, led to an increase in diversity.

Many of society’s most important advances have stemmed from those with the foresight to pursue new capabilities that most believed to be unattainable.

ARIA empowers scientists and engineers with the resources and freedom to pursue those breakthroughs.

Many will fail to meet their target, but their efforts will inspire the next generation. Those that do succeed will generate massive social and economic returns.

They support testing and spreading of ideas, build capacity, skills and knowledge and share evidence to improve health and social care.

There aspiration is to create a virtuous circle, using what we know works on the ground to inform effective policymaking and vice versa. 

View opportunities currently open for application, browse our fellowship programmes or view a full list of our funding programmes below.

Southward Council has put together this guide including several resources on finding evidence in the literature, and on assessing its quality.

• Funding and grant information

• Find collaborators for your R&I programmes

• Webinars and training programmes

• Research and innovation resources

• Network with Health and Care, Academic, Research and Government organisations across Kent and Medway

Please note the email address to contact the KMRIC team is kmric-managers@lists.kent.ac.uk

Whatever your health professional background, the HealthUEA Academy for Professional Development offers a variety of educational courses to suit your individual learning needs.

davinia.springer@kent.gov.uk

It outlines how to plan for evaluation from the outset, ensure appropriate data governance, and how the Research Team can support the process.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, prisons faced a unique challenge of preventing and managing outbreaks with minimal adverse impact. This study aims to describe the epidemiology of COVID-19 in prisons, identify lessons learnt and make recommendations.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used the PubMed advanced search function using MeSH terms; (coronavirus, sars) AND (prisons) AND (disease outbreaks). The authors included original research reporting COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons. All other types and non-English publications were excluded. The authors used a structured data abstraction template to extract data systematically, and a second author independently abstracted data from 10% of the papers for quality assurance.

Findings

The search yielded 96 hits. The authors included 15 studies meeting the inclusion criteria. These studies were from four countries. Seven studies reported individual outbreaks. The mean and median number of inmates and staff were 1,765, 1,126 and 575, 510. The mean and median number of cases among inmates and staff were 584, 464, and 72, 77. The number of reported deaths varied from 0 to 11. The authors present the prison-specific hazards grouped under human factors, healthcare factors and environmental factors. The authors also summarise interventions deployed as either primary prevention interventions, such as vaccinations, or secondary prevention interventions, including screening and contact tracing.

Originality/value

This narrative review summarises the prison-specific hazards, which include movement of people in and out of the person, moving in new prisoners from other prisons, mixing of prisoners when transporting to courts, limited medical and isolation resources, crowded dormitories, shared lavatories, small communal facilities, poor ventilation and overcrowding. The interventions included limiting non-medical transfers into and out of the persons, assigning staff members to specific areas, encouraging face coverings among prisoners and staff and social isolation measures within the constraints of the prison setting. The interventions were adopted by prison authorities to contain and manage the outbreaks. Public Health and prison authorities need to be aware of the risk of further outbreaks of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases in these settings and implement key measures identified in this review to minimise adverse outcomes.

Methods: Following the PRISMA protocol, we searched for economic evaluations of preventative intervention studies in four different areas: overweight and obesity, physical inactivity, alcohol and illicit drugs use and smoking cessation. The systematic review identified studies between January 1994 and February 2015, using five databases. We synthesized the studies to identify the key methods and examined results of the economic evaluations.

Results: The majority of the evaluations related to cost-effectiveness, rather than cost-benefit analyses or cost-utility analyses. These analyses found preventative interventions to be cost effective, though the context of the interventions differed between the studies.

Conclusions: Preventative public health interventions in general are cost-effective. There is a need for further studies to support justification of continued and/or increased funding for public health interventions. There is much variation between the types of economically evaluated preventative interventions in our review. Broader studies incorporating different contexts may help support funding for local authority-sponsored public health initiatives.

Methods
A systematic mapping of internet content identified accessible datasets relevant to wider determinants of health in England with town level geographical granularity or lower. Search terms were used in search engines and chatbots to identify weblinks subsequently examined for eligible datasets.

Results
105 potential weblinks to datasets were identified. Of these, twenty-one weblinks were explored further after exclusion of those: not accessible or currently live (n = 13); duplicated across search engines (n = 17); providing information only (i.e. no raw data, n = 14); did not provide freely accessible data (n 3); were not relevant to wider determinants of health (n = 17); lacked geographical granularity (n = 26). Eighty-nine datasets of interest were compiled with sub-town level data aggregation. Approximately half (n = 47, 52%) were from the England and Wales census 2021, with the remaining sources including government bodies, public services, and research datasets. Datasets covered many valuable categories of wider determinants of health. Key data gaps included food consumption, social care data and community/voluntary services.

Conclusion
In England, access to data relevant to wider determinants of health is good and available at relatively small geographical resolution. Accessible datasets were identified and compiled within multiple categories of wider determinants of health as a useful data resource to explore wider determinants of health at place if linked to relevant health data or population studies.

There is growing evidence of a link between domestic violence and suicidality. We present the first national analysis of women with mental disorders who died by suicide having experienced domestic violence. We aim to make recommendations to improve the safety of services, particularly for women who experience domestic violence.

Methods

We obtained data on women who died by suicide under the care of UK mental health services (2015–2021). We compared women who experienced domestic violence with women with no known history. Logistic regression identified associations between person and care characteristics and domestic violence.

Findings

We identified 630 women who experienced domestic violence, 26% of all women with mental disorders who died by suicide. These women were younger (median age 42 vs. 47), and more often unemployed (366, 64% v. 641, 39%; p0.002). Adverse life events were common (378, 66%), most often serious financial problems (104, 23% v. 163, 10%; p < 0.001) and/or loss of job, benefits, or housing (97, 20% v. 198, 13%; p < 0.001). Many had a diagnosis of PTSD (83, 13% v. 72, 4%), self-harm (500, 83% v. 1,077, 62%), and alcohol misuse (371, 63% v. 477, 27%). They were more likely to have a history of violence as a perpetrator (124, 22% v. 87, 5%; p < 0.001).

Interpretation

Many factors associated with suicide are also associated with domestic violence (e.g., unemployment, serious financial problems), suggesting intersecting disadvantages. Mental health clinicians have a responsibility to enquire about domestic violence and address its impacts as an integral part of suicide prevention.

This literature review was conducted using the established method of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke,2006), and in parallel with the APPG report and WHO recommendations, consolidates the findings into three key themed areas: underserved women’s reproductive healthcare, cost effective contraception, young people’s access to and understanding of fertility and contraception services. Underserved communities such as young women from marginalised groups, people of colour (Messinis et al,2021), women who have sex with women (Burkill & Waterhouse2019) and women with disabilities (McCarthy,2011), experience inadequate and disparity of provision when accessing reproductive services. The review highlights limited high quality, recent, UK-based studies to further inform local governments, that considers the views and needs of young women 18–25 years when accessing reproductive services to implement change.

Design We adopted the system dynamics model incorporating susceptible, exposed, infection and recovery framework to simulate the progress of the pandemic and how the interventions for the COVID-19 response influence the outcomes with a focus on secondary care.

Setting This study was carried out covering all the local health systems in Southeast of England with a catchment population of six million with a specific focus on Kent and Medway system.

Participants Six local health systems in Southeast of England using Kent and Medway as a case study.

Interventions Short to medium ‘what if’ scenarios incorporating human behaviour, non-pharmaceutical interventions and medical interventions were tested using the model with regular and continuous feedback of the model results to the local health system leaders for monitoring, planning and rapid response as needed.

Main outcome measures Daily output from the model which included number infected in the population, hospital admissions needing COVID-19 care, occupied general beds, continuous positive airway pressure beds, intensive care beds, hospital discharge pathways and deaths.

Results We successfully implemented a regional series of models based on the local population needs which were used in healthcare planning as part of the pandemic response.

Conclusions In this study, we have demonstrated the utility of system dynamics modelling incorporating local intelligence and collaborative working during the pandemic to respond rapidly and take decisions to protect the population. This led to strengthened cooperation among partners and ensured that the local population healthcare needs were met.

Objectives
We aimed to engage with citizens of KSS to gather their views and expectations of data linkage and re-use, through deliberative discussions.

Methods
We held five 3-hour deliberative focus groups with 79 citizens of KSS, presenting information about potential uses of data, safeguards, and mechanisms for public involvement in governance and decision making about datasets. After each presentation, participants discussed their views in facilitated small groups which were recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically.

Results
The focus groups generated 15 themes representing participants' views on the benefits, risks and values for safeguarding linked data. Participants largely supported use of patient data to improve health service efficiency and resource management, preventative services and out of hospital care, joined-up services and information flows. Most participants expressed concerns about data accuracy, breaches and hacking, and worried about commercial use of data. They suggested that transparency of data usage through audit trails and clear information about accountability, ensuring data re-use does not perpetuate stigma and discrimination, ongoing, inclusive and valued involvement of the public in dataset decision-making, and a commitment to building trust, would meet their expectations for responsible data use.

Conclusions
Participants were largely favourable about the proposed uses of patient linked datasets but expected a commitment to transparency and public involvement. Findings were mapped to previous tenets of social license and can be used to inform ICB digital programme teams on how to proceed with use of linked datasets in a trustworthy and socially acceptable way.

Lung cancer has the poorest survival due to late diagnosis and there is no universal screening. Hence, early detection is crucial. Our objective was to develop a lung cancer risk prediction tool at a population level.

Methods

We used a large place-based linked data set from a local health system in southeast England which contained extensive information covering demographic, socioeconomic, lifestyle, health, and care service utilisation. We exploited the power of Machine Learning to derive risk scores using linear regression modelling. Tens of thousands of model runs were undertaken to identify attributes which predicted the risk of lung cancer.

Results

Initially, 16 attributes were identified. A final combination of seven attributes was chosen based on the number of cancers detected which formed the Kent & Medway lung cancer risk prediction tool. This was then compared with the criteria used in the wider Targeted Lung Health Checks programme. The prediction tool outperformed by detecting 822 cases compared to 581 by the lung check programme currently in operation.

Conclusion

We have demonstrated the useful application of Machine Learning in developing a risk score for lung cancer and discuss its clinical applicability.

Research into the socio-economic patterning of health and social care costs in the UK has so far been limited to examining only particular aspects of healthcare. In this study, we explore the social gradients in overall healthcare and social care costs, as well as in the disaggregated costs by cost category.

Study design

We calculated the social gradient in health and social care costs by cost category using a linked electronic health record data set for Kent, a county in South East England. We performed a cross-sectional analysis on a sample of 323,401 residents in Kent older than 55 years to assess the impact of neighbourhood deprivation on mean annual per capita costs in 2016/17.

Methods

Patient-level costs were estimated from activity data for the financial year 2016/17 and were extracted alongside key patient characteristics. Mean costs were calculated for each area deprivation quintile based on the index of multiple deprivation of the neighbourhood (lower super output area) in which the patient lived. Cost subcategories were analysed across primary care, secondary care, social care, community care and mental health.

Results

The mean annual per capita cost increased with deprivation across each deprivation quintile, with a cost of £1205 in the most affluent quintile, compared with £1623 in the most deprived quintile, a 35% cost increase. Social gradients were found across all cost subcategories.

Conclusions

Health inequalities in the population older than 55 years in Kent are associated with health and social care costs of £109m, equivalent to 15% of the estimated total expenditure in this age group. Such significant costs suggest that appropriate interventions to reduce socio-economic inequalities have the potential to substantially improve population health and, depending on how much investment they require, may even result in cost savings.

Methods Using a sample aged 18–100 years, resident within Kent, who were alive and currently registered to a Kent general practice as of 6 August 2018 within the Kent Integrated Dataset. We identified the latest BMI from event records between 2015/2016 and 2017/2018. Recording was evaluated by sex, age, deprivation, hypertension, serious mental illness and multimorbidity.

Results Between 2015/2016 and 2017/2018 using the sample of 1 154 652 persons, BMI was recorded for 43.7% of the sample. Multiple logistic regression showed that BMI recording was higher in females, the middle age bands, persons living in the most deprived areas and within persons who were hypertensive, had serious mental illness or were multimorbid.

Conclusions Findings were aligned to previous research using nationally representative samples. Completeness of recording varied by age, sex, deprivation and comorbidity. Recording within general practice was aligned to chronic disease management. From a prevention perspective, earlier assessment and intervention for the management of excess weight within primary care may be an opportunity for avoiding increases in BMI trajectory. There may also be merit in recognising that the external disease agents that influence obesity can be controlled or reduced (obesogenic environment) from a national policy perspective. Such a perspective may also help reduce stigmatisation and the pressure around arguments that centre on personal responsibility for obesity.

People with learning disabilities have higher rates of admitted patient care than the general population. This study explored emergency hospital admissions during 2018/19 in association with learning disability health check recording in general practice within the Kent Integrated Dataset during 2016/17 to 2018/19.

Methods

Multiple logistic regression evaluated the odds of emergency hospital admission by sex, age, deprivation, residence, risk score, long-term conditions, severe health needs and health check. During 2018/19, one or more emergency hospital admissions were recorded for 10.9% of the 5,759 persons recorded with learning disability.

Results

There were lower odds of emergency hospital admission in persons having had learning disability health check in the past 3 years even after adjustment.

Conclusions

Comparison to nationally representative research suggests a consistent finding of benefit from learning disability health check on indicators of unplanned care use, supporting the view that learning disability health checks facilitate the addressing of key health needs.

The paper considers how the use of modern technologies, data, and analysis can be further developed to help deliver more effective, equitable, and timely public health interventions to protect and improve health.

It also identifies key barriers to progress, including fragmented access to data, limited workforce capacity, and the need for clearer pathways for cross-organisation collaboration.

Developed by the Faculty’s Public Health Information and Intelligence Special Interest Group, the paper sets out eight recommendations aimed at government departments, public health agencies, and professional bodies.

These include calls for stronger national leadership on public health intelligence, better data infrastructure, improved career pathways for public health intelligence professionals, and clearer legal frameworks to enable safe and effective data sharing.

The publication supports FPH’s strategic focus on prevention, equity, and systems leadership and underscores the importance of embedding analytical capability across the whole public health system.

By strengthening the role of data and modern technologies in public health practice, the recommendations aim to ensure that public health intelligence is fully utilised to population health.

dino.motti@kent.gov.uk

Embedded Domestic Abuse Support Worker

Stroke Prevention Pilot

Postural Stability

• what community health and social care looks and feels like for children, young people and their families in seaside towns in England

• what helps and protects children and young people’s health and care where they live

• how local services can work together to support children and young people’s health and care in seaside towns

• what difference this can make to children, young people and their families’ lives

Our research team is made up of universities, community health providers and local councils and we are supported by groups of local youth and parent/carer advisors and organisations in four seaside towns. The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has provided funding for this work.

CIRCLE = Coastal/Care Integrated Responses & Children’s Lived Experiences

Purpose of the Survey

The survey investigates how people perceive the relationship between sleep, memory, and conditions such as dementia. It seeks to understand public attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs about sleep habits and memory issues, which are linked to both physical and mental health outcomes. The findings will inform future research and public healthcare strategies related to sleep and memory management

Olivia.Trapp@kent.gov.uk