The gut microbiota: The hidden universe in your body
By Dr Jia Li, Senior Lecturer and Grace Barker, PhD student, Imperial College London
There are about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. It’s massive, isn’t it?
Blog posts
How wearable devices could bridge the nutrition data gap in the developing world
By Dr Modou Jobarteh, Research Associate in nutrition and dietetics
The fact that there are still individuals, families and communities still going to bed hungry every night is arguably the biggest failure of our generation.
Why sharing leadership in healthcare matters
By Dr Lisa Aufegger, Research Associate
Alongside the inherent challenges of the job itself, working in acute healthcare teams comes with another layer of complexity.
On a regular basis, staff will interact with highly specialised professionals from across different disciplines. This means that team members such as anaesthetists, nurses and surgeons need a high level of shared understanding, not only in relation to their main objective but their roles and responsibilities, too.
Shared leadership (SL) – where leadership working relationships are distributed and team members’ unique roles defined – has been proposed as a way to foster effective team performance in such situations. And it’s the focus of my latest research. (more…)
Experiences of Shout-ing for Mental Health
By Lily Roberts, NHS Digital Academy Teaching Fellow
“I’m really struggling, is someone there?”
“Hi there, my name is Sophie and I’m here for you tonight. Tell me a bit about what’s on your mind.”
“I can’t cope anymore, I just want to end it all…”
While this exchange is fictional, it is a representation of a very real problem. (more…)
A Shout out for mental health
By Dr Emma Lawrance, Mental Health Innovations Fellow
These are hyper-connected times. We’re told we can get what we want – from dinner to a date – at the tap of a phone screen. And yet, even with the world seemingly at our fingertips, when we are in an emotional crisis or struggling with our mental health, it can be hard to know where to go. And hard to know what to say, when one of our loved ones is brave enough to express what’s truly on their mind. (more…)
Let’s talk about young people’s mental health
By Dr Lindsay H Dewa, Research Associate, NIHR Imperial Patient Safety Translational Research Centre
“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken”.
C.S. Lewis (more…)
Project SAPPHIRE: Making the most of precious health data
By Joshua Symons, Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation’s Big Data Analytical Unit
Patient data is precious. It’s a resource that many researchers and clinicians use to improve healthcare and therefore the lives of patients and health professionals. That’s why we want to make sure it’s used in a way that’s both effective and safe. (more…)
Getting back on track: 5 Imperial academics working to end malaria
Imperial College London is home to a whole host of academics researching malaria, many of whom are part of IGHI’s Centre for African Research and Engagement.
Our Co-production Journey: From Sandpits to Bird Boxes
By Anna Lawrence-Jones (co-written with Jean Straus).
This article originally appeared on the UCL Public Engagement blog and has been reposted with permission. Visit the blog to read more about the UCL Centre for Co-Production in Health Research.
In my former job at Cancer Research UK, I organised Sandpit Innovation Workshops that brought together researchers, healthcare professionals and innovative thinkers to come up with novel research ideas to help solve a health challenge. Normally a three-day event, sandpits are a way to generate research ideas – which are inevitably more innovative and daring in this spontaneous environment – and get them funded quickly. But often, patient attendees were part of a panel which selected projects to fund, and were not part of the teams producing the ideas themselves. I often felt these were a lost opportunity for patients to have a greater role. (more…)
How nurses and midwives are essential to achieving universal health coverage
By Nicolette Davies, IGHI’s Head of Operations
Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a basic human right. The WHO’s Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom, continues to highlight the importance of UHC by focusing its World Health Day on this topic. Dr Tedros’ top priority is equity for health for all, but how will we achieve the World Health Assembly’s ambitious target of 1 billion more people benefiting from UHC within five years? (more…)