Health research at the public health forefront

Health is at the very centre of the COVID-19 pandemic, and our people are doing all they can to contribute their knowledge and expertise in the areas that matter most. Staff and students at Glasgow Caledonian University are putting their skills to best use for the benefit of everyone. As well as staff and students having joined the frontline in hospitals and communities, we have undertaken research and advisory roles on topics ranging from infection prevention, effective contact tracing and hand hygiene to nurse resilience and immunity testing.

You can read through more detailed examples of our contributions in this area within the sections below.

Thousands of Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) nursing, paramedic and AHP (Applied Health Professional) students are part of a 12,000-cohort heading out on practice placement to work with the NHS over the next few months in the continued battle against COVID-19.

Scottish Government Health Secretary Humza Yousaf praised their commitment and contribution to the NHS during an announcement this week.

He said: “As part of their professional programme of education, and throughout the pandemic, these students have worked tirelessly to support our NHS, making an invaluable contribution to the delivery of care as part of their supervised practice in health and social care environments.

“As we go into a third year facing up to the challenges of COVID, we are fortunate to combine good quality learning attained by students as part of their supervised practice with the positive impact these students have on the delivery of safe, effective patient care and their ongoing support of our NHS. And I wholeheartedly thank them for their hard work during this difficult time.”

The government revealed that more than 3,000 nursing and midwifery students are heading out on placements this month. A further 7,000 students will be placed across the service in February, complemented by around 1,500 AHP students and more than 500 paramedic students who will also be involved in the delivery of care via supervised practice.

This month and next, a total of 1024 GCU nursing students from all fields of nursing practice will be placed in partner health boards in the South-West of Scotland. By March, a further 793 nursing students will be out in practice placement giving a total of 1817 nursing students joining registered nurses in the COVID-19 effort.

GCU has had 50 level 1 paramedic science students out on their first placements since January 10, a further 58 level 2 students will then enter placements with the Scottish Ambulance Service on 125 January and final year students will go out on placements on 14 March.

Hundreds of GCU AHP students in diagnostic imaging, human nutrition and dietetics, occupational therapy, orthoptics, physiotherapy, podiatry and radiotherapy will also be heading out on practice placements over the next few months.

View the full statement from the Scottish Government

Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) students are providing lifeline mental health support for COVID-19 frontline superheroes – 85% of whom are burnt out by the pandemic, according to new research.

Our DPsych Health and Sport and Exercise Psychology trainee psychologists are working with the charity SAMH (Scottish Association for Mental Health) to provide one-to-one sessions through a free and immediate service called Time for You.

A new survey, commissioned by SAMH, revealed that the vast majority (86%) of frontline workers across all sectors involved in keeping the country going during the pandemic reported worsening mental health problems.

The research, carried out by 3Gem on adults in Scotland employed in the frontline sector, found 90% of those working in the retail sector, including supermarket workers and younger people aged between 25-34, have been the hardest hit.

Dr Bryan McCann, GCU Sport and Exercise Psychologist and Lecturer in Psychology, said: “Frontline workers have been superheroes during the pandemic to make sure that vital services are available to the public.

“They have been under a huge amount of strain, and some frontline workers are likely feeling the effects of that strain. The Time for You service provides frontline workers with invaluable support during these challenging times.

“GCU are delighted to be able to work with SAMH to help deliver the Time for You service. Our trainee psychologists are providing one-to-one support to frontline workers through the service, and we are conducting an evaluation which will help to enhance the service so that it provides the most appropriate support.”

Dr McCann said working with the Time for You service will give the trainees “invaluable experience and employability skills for the future” as well as make a positive contribution to the community, fulfilling GCU’s mission as the University for the Common Good.

The trainee psychologists offer frontline workers three different levels of mental health support – ranging from self-help resources, to access to talking therapies, like cognitive behavioural therapy.

Time for You is provided by SAMH, GCU and Living Life to the Full. It is funded by Foundation Scotland’s Response, Recovery and Resilience Fund, supported by the National Emergencies Trust.

Tenacious academic Dr Ima Jackson has won her battle to get ethnicity data recorded into our key systemic health data processes in Scotland through the COVID-19 vaccination rollout.

The community engaged researcher said the "disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on ethnic minorities in some high-income countries has shown clearly the effects of racism on health, and the recording of ethnicity is to determine the effects of racism and the resulting inequity on people's lives".

Dr Jackson, who works broadly within migration and with those who are marginalised through racialisation within society, is co-lead on the Scottish Government Expert Reference Group on COVID-19 and Ethnicity.

The expert group was set up just over a year ago in response to the increased COVID-19 mortality and morbidity in some minority ethnicities and recommendations to record ethnicity data in the vaccine rollout have now been accepted.

Dr Jackson said: "This is a significant breakthrough and I have done it with the support of my group. This is not just for COVID-19 but for future generations that we will now start to collect this data in a systemic, robust and meaningful way to ensure we can as a society document the inequity people have to live with in order to address it.

"Before now, it was well known that Scotland didn't have adequate quality data that recorded ethnicity, but little was done about it until it was obvious in the pandemic that there was an increase of mortality and morbidity in some ethnicities in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the US, but Scotland couldn't say what was happening because it didn't have quality data. The COVID advisory group was advised to use the precautionary principle and rely on England's data.

"The Expert Group advised Scottish Government that this is an opportunity for the lack of recording of ethnicity health data to be righted in the pandemic as our vaccine data set is unparalleled. They were accepting of the group's recommendations but painfully slow to respond.

"It has taken me months of work to achieve this goal and support Scottish Government and most crucially the NHS lead Caroline Lamb to reverse their initial decision to not record at vaccination. I'm pleased to say that the hard work has paid off and ethnicity will be recorded from here on in during future roll out of the vaccination programme- which is to become our key health data set."

Dr Jackson's work has been recognised by Scottish Government and she has been invited to join the Programme Board with the Chief Statistician and senior colleagues across Scotland to identify and support implementation of the systemic changes for robust intersectional data to address the inequity for all those with protected characteristics in Scotland. She has also been invited by the Deputy First Minister to join his COVID recovery group.

Nations and drug companies have been urged to put the patents for a COVID-19 vaccine in the public domain for the good of humanity.

The pharmaceutical industry, and its university partners, should make the potential vaccine available to all countries without priority or exclusivity and put the "global common good" ahead of profit, according to leading health economists.

Writing in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, health economist Professor Cam Donaldson, Yunus Chair at Glasgow Caledonian University, outlines the dangers of countries acting in their own self-interest in the race to find a vaccine.

In an article, co-written with Nobel Peace Laureate and GCU Emeritus Chancellor Professor Muhammad Yunus, he states: "As the virus knows no geographic boundaries, we have to act to help each other.

"Scientific consensus is that the only way this pandemic will be eradicated is through the vaccination of all people worldwide.

"It is, therefore, important to recognise this in our policy actions to avoid the tragedy of the commons, in which selfish behaviour leads to adverse communal outcomes. This is true for countries as well as individuals.

"We call for the response to COVID-19 to be global in deeds as well as words and based on principles of equal and universal access to treatments and vaccines.

"The mission, and driver, should not be one of profit but, rather the achievement of the widest and maximum health benefit possible."

Campaigners are urging vaccine research to be placed in the public domain and made available to any production facility that pledges to operate under strict international regulatory supervision.

Professor Donaldson added: "The funds required to mobilise around COVID-19 vaccines as a global common good are likely to pale into insignificance relative to what will be required to address on ongoing economic recession consequent on non-eradication.

"The collective reward for laboratories and researchers who contribute to the development of COVID-19 vaccines for the Common Good would be the ability operate in more settled ‘markets’ and perhaps a Nobel Prize in Medicine, and even in Peace."

Researchers are working on a form of artificial intelligence that can help medical staff prioritise lung-disease severity – saving lives and easing the burden on hospitals in COVID-hit regions around the world.

A Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) team will develop an app that will work with existing X-ray technology to identify a host of lung diseases in their early stages, such as cancer, tuberculosis and pneumonia.

The researchers say, globally, 4 million people die prematurely from chronic respiratory disease each year, with figures especially high in low- and middle-income countries, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers are concerned this has put an enormous pressure on skilled medical practitioners in these countries, who are generally located away from rural areas.

Therefore, the research team is seeking to create an app that allows X-ray images to be uploaded and analysed using state-of-the-art trained artificial intelligence models for the presence of different lung diseases. The result, based on the diagnosis, will be available for immediate download, meaning only urgent cases will be referred to a major hospital.

The prototype app will be trialled in Pakistan, where lung-related diseases accounted for 4.48% of deaths in 2018.

Dr Sajid Nazir, of GCU’s School of Computing, Engineering and Built Environment and who is leading the research team, said: “Our app will provide a timely, accessible and low-cost solution that, with wider deployment, can take significant pressure off major hospitals and medical practitioners by only referring the cases requiring a hospital visit.

“X-ray facilities are easy to set up and are widely available in rural areas of Pakistan. However, the radiologists with expert knowledge to interpret and diagnose these images are only available in main hospitals, which are generally away from rural areas.

“The need to travel to the main hospitals to seek expert opinion on readily available imaging in local rural areas can be avoided through providing this online diagnosis facility. Internet facilities are available in rural areas and a cloud-based application can make the diagnosis accessible to a rural population by integrating it with the basic medical health units located within these areas.”

A prototype of the app is expected by July with full results to be published by the end of this year.

The project is being funded by GCU’s Internal Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).

Research at GCU

Research is instrumental in tackling society’s biggest problems. The health, social and economic challenges uncovered by COVID-19 brings into sharp focus our commitment to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure peace and prosperity for all.

Sustainable Development Goals

These global goals reflect our ethos as the University for the Common Good and our mission to make a positive difference to the communities we serve. Read our institutional research strategy to find out more about our commitment to the SDGs during the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond.

The icons below show which of the 17 SDGs we aim to impact through the research above.