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HeRC brings public voice to international health data conference

Posted on January 6, 2017

Members of HeRC's public Forum at the International Population Data Linkage conference in Swansea

Three members of HeRC’s patient and public involvement Forum participated in a major health data science conference held in Swansea, Wales in August 2016.

The bi-annual conference hosted by the International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) and The Farr Institute is a key date in the calendar for world-leading academics in the field of health data science. This year’s conference was held over three days (24-26th August) and was attended by 500 delegates from 22 countries, spanning six continents.

Alan Campbell, Lay Chair of HeRC’s public forum, was selected to represent northern  England alongside three other members of the public as part of a well-attended panel discussion, taking centre stage in the main auditorium on the second day of the conference.  Members of the panel each delivered speeches and took questions from the audience in a lively session about their views on data linkage research and public engagement.

Watch our conference video here

Angela Ruddock and Peter Donnelly, also from HeRC’s patient and public forum (H@PPI) were invited by the organisers to participate in the popular pre-conference workshop programme.  Working alongside researchers and PhD students, they participated in a session on working with the media to communicate the findings of health data science research.

All three members of the forum took the opportunity to attend the academic and social aspects of the conference programme, which included a Welsh cultural show featuring a male voice choir and Welsh dancing.

Meanwhile, HeRC members of staff, Dr Lamiece Hassan, Dr Mary Tully and Matt Machin, contributed towards the public engagement theme within the academic programme of the conference. They presented a series of talks reporting on emerging findings from HeRC’s innovative citizens’ juries, national citizen science study into allergies #BritainBreathing, and public involvement into the co-design of a platform for dementia research .

Angela Ruddock, a long-standing member of HeRC’s public forum and public engagement activities across The University of Manchester, commented :

“Data matters: linked data research can help to provide a three dimensional picture of the health and well-being of communities, particularly those from deprived and low socio-economic backgrounds. Overall, I was tremendously impressed with the quality of the presentations I had heard. As a member of the public, I feel very passionately about spreading the word about research in ways that are accessible across the board, whether that is to clinicians, other researchers or indeed the general public.”

Read Angela’s full blog post here and Peter’s blog post here.

ENDS

For media enquiries please contact Stephen Melia, Comms Lead at the Health eResearch Centre, stephen.melia@manchester.ac.uk