Iain Atherton
Iain Atherton

Dr Iain Atherton RGN, Ba(hons), MSc, FRGS, PhD, SFHEA

Senior Lecturer

Biography

I am an internationally recognised in the use of nationally representative survey, administrative and census data to answer policy relevant questions.

Since 2016 I have been a co-director of the ESRC funded Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research, one of the ADR UK network. That work has involved him working with colleagues across the UK to facilitate and encourage the use of anonymised linked administrative data to address key policy focused issues.
I lead a team of two (soon to be three) research fellows on ESRC funded projects using data to understand the drivers behind home deaths in Scotland, the dynamics of the nursing and midwifery professions across the UK, and the wellbeing of Scotland’s veteran community. This work involves a wide range of stakeholders from academia (including colleagues from other schools at Edinburgh Napier University), as well as policy, regulatory, and the public.

I was lead for Edinburgh Napier University’s development of a submission for Unit of Assessment 3 to REF 2021 between 2016 and 2019. I have also played a leading role in enabling the university to become a pocket of excellence associated with Unit of Assessment 3 (Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy) in the Scottish Graduate School for the Social Sciences.

I am passionate about the transformative potential of education. He has written on pedagogy in nurse education, and on the population health in pre-registration curriculum. He works closely with colleagues internationally to encourage person centred learning through flipped classroom approaches.

News

Events

Esteem

Advisory panels and expert committees or witness

  • Member of Nursing and Midwifery Council Thought Leadership Group

 

Conference Organising Activity

  • Workshop lead: Unlocking data to better understand the nursing & midwifery workforce
  • Scientific advisory group - International Medical Geographies Symposium
  • Seminar: Last 1000 days of Life
  • Harnessing the Power of Datasets to Develop Policy in New Zealand
  • Frontier Event Organiser: Employability and tackling poverty
  • Organiser symposium on ‘Big Data’, RCN Research Conference, University of Nottingham.
  • Invited to sit on Scientific Advisory Panel for NETNEP International Nurse Education Conference (2015)

 

Editorial Activity

  • Editorial Advisory Group for the journal Nurse Education Today

 

External Examining/Validations

  • External reviewer promotion application

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • ADR UK - 'Cross-partnership working' award
  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • University of Stirling Rated Award
  • Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society

 

Grant Funding Panel Member

  • Scottish Graduate School for the Social Sciences proposal reviewer
  • Carnegie Trust Reviewer
  • ESRC Peer Review College membership

 

Grant Reviewer

  • Reviewer for applications to Scottish Graduate School for the Social Sciences Steer competition
  • Funding proposals reviewed for ESRC, Chief Scientists Office for Scotland, and Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare

 

Invited Speaker

  • Invited to present to Centre for Healthcare Education Research, University of Aberdeen
  • ADR UK Webinar keynote on the NMC-Census England and Wales dataset
  • Scotland Policy Conferences keynote speaker
  • Harnessing the power of large integrated national administrative datasets to develop policy in New Zealand
  • Using data to realise the potential of the 'Last 1000 days
  • RAF Association research seminar - invited speaker
  • Speaker at seminar organised for government analysts from South Korea
  • Medical and Nursing Faculties, University of Queensland, Australia (April 2016).
  • Scottish Longitudinal Studies Roadshow
  • Health and homelessness Conference, NHS Edinburgh, August, 2011.
  • Scotstat Data Linkage Conference, Edinburgh (2012).
  • NETNEP International Nurse Education Conference, Netherlands (June 2014).
  • Scottish Blackboard Users Group (Scot-BUG) (2014).
  • NETNEP International Nurse Education Conference, Brisbane Australia (April 2016).

 

Media Activity

  • Guardian article on end of life research

 

Membership of Professional Body

  • Registered General Nurse

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • PhD examination
  • PhD Examination
  • MRes examination

 

Reviewing

  • Peer reviewing for Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
  • Peer review of journals: BMJ, Ageing and Society, Social Science and Medicine, Nursing and Health, Nursing Standard,and Population Space and Place.
  • Appointed to Economic and Social Research Council Peer Review College (2015)

 

Date


70 results

An investigation of cancer survival inequalities associated with individual-level socio-economic status, area-level deprivation, and contextual effects, in a cancer patient cohort in England and Wales

Journal Article
Ingleby, F. C., Woods, L. M., Atherton, I. M., Baker, M., Elliss-Brookes, L., & Belot, A. (2022)
An investigation of cancer survival inequalities associated with individual-level socio-economic status, area-level deprivation, and contextual effects, in a cancer patient cohort in England and Wales. BMC Public Health, 22, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12525-1
Background People living in more deprived areas of high-income countries have lower cancer survival than those in less deprived areas. However, associations between individual...

Long-Term Conditions in Older People are Linked with Loneliness, but a Sense of Coherence Buffers the Adverse Effects on Quality of Life: A Cross-Sectional Study

Journal Article
van Woerden, H. C., Angus, N., Kiparoglou, V., Atherton, I., & Leung, J. (2021)
Long-Term Conditions in Older People are Linked with Loneliness, but a Sense of Coherence Buffers the Adverse Effects on Quality of Life: A Cross-Sectional Study. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 14, 2467-2475. https://doi.org/10.2147/jmdh.s317393
Background: The impact of disability, long-term conditions, rurality, living alone, and being a carer on health has some evidence base, but the extent to which a strong sense ...

Excess deaths at home: engagement with service providers

Presentation / Conference
Mahoney, C., Garcia-Lopez, Y., & Atherton, I. (2021, August)
Excess deaths at home: engagement with service providers. Presented at Scottish Bereavement Steering Group 2021, Glasgow, UK

Describing socio-economic variation in life expectancy according to an individual's education, occupation and wage in England and Wales: An analysis of the ONS Longitudinal Study

Journal Article
Ingleby, F. C., Woods, L. M., Atherton, I. M., Baker, M., Elliss-Brookes, L., & Belot, A. (2021)
Describing socio-economic variation in life expectancy according to an individual's education, occupation and wage in England and Wales: An analysis of the ONS Longitudinal Study. SSM - Population Health, 14, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100815
People who live in more deprived areas have poorer health outcomes, and this inequality is a major driver of health and social policy. Many interventions targeting these dispa...

Palliative care at home: implications of the Covid-19 pandemic and into the future [Policy brief]

Report
Savinc, J., & Atherton, I. (2021)
Palliative care at home: implications of the Covid-19 pandemic and into the future [Policy brief]. SCADR

Context, complexity and cross-pollination: Nursing leaders' views of the role of the voluntary and community sector in nurse education

Journal Article
Kyle, R. G., Atherton, I. M., & Lasater, K. (2021)
Context, complexity and cross-pollination: Nursing leaders' views of the role of the voluntary and community sector in nurse education. Nurse Education Today, 99, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104732
Background Placements in voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations have long played an important part in student nurses' education in several countries. New standards...

Berberine for the treatment of hypertension: a systematic review

Journal Article
Suadoni, M. T., & Atherton, I. (2021)
Berberine for the treatment of hypertension: a systematic review. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 42, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctcp.2020.101287
Background Hypertension is the highest risk factor for disease globally. One popular therapy is berberine. Methods The review followed the protocol PRISMA-P, and is reported a...

Impact of area deprivation on the cardiac mortality in the UK between 1991 and 2010: evidence from a population-based longitudinal study

Journal Article
Jin, K., Neubeck, L., & Atherton, I. (2021)
Impact of area deprivation on the cardiac mortality in the UK between 1991 and 2010: evidence from a population-based longitudinal study. European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, 20(5), 436-444. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjcn/zvaa021
Aim: Evidence from longitudinal studies on the influence of area deprivation in cardiac mortality is limited. We aimed to examine the impact of area deprivation on cardiac mor...

Assessment of the concordance between individual- and area-level measures of socio-economic deprivation in a cancer patient cohort in England and Wales

Journal Article
Ingleby, F. C., Belot, A., Atherton, I. M., Baker, M., Elliss-Brookes, L., & Woods, L. M. (2020)
Assessment of the concordance between individual- and area-level measures of socio-economic deprivation in a cancer patient cohort in England and Wales. BMJ Open, 10(11), https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-041714
Objectives Most research on health inequalities uses aggregated deprivation scores assigned to the small area where the patient lives; however, the concordance between aggrega...

Linkage of national health and social care data: a cross-sectional study of multimorbidity and social care use in people aged over 65 years in Scotland

Journal Article
Henderson, D. A., Atherton, I., McCowan, C., Mercer, S. W., & Bailey, N. (2021)
Linkage of national health and social care data: a cross-sectional study of multimorbidity and social care use in people aged over 65 years in Scotland. Age and ageing, 50(1), 176-182. https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afaa134
Background: Little is known about the relationship between multimorbidity and social care use (also known as long-term care). The aim of this study was to assess the relations...

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • Nursing Education: what can perspectives from the social sciences contribute?
  • Cancer survivorship in Scotland: living with and beyond cancer in Scotland
  • ESRC +3 PhD funding
  • Simon Population Trust MSc funding (tuition fees and stipend)

Current Post Grad projects

Previous Post Grad projects

Non-Napier PhD or MSc by Research supervisions

  • Supervision of PhD at University of Dundee