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

Population health as a 'platform' for nurse education: A qualitative study of nursing leaders

Journal Article
Lasater, K., Atherton, I. M., & Kyle, R. G. (2020)
Population health as a 'platform' for nurse education: A qualitative study of nursing leaders. Nurse Education Today, 86, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2019.104313
Background: Challenges to the sustainability of global healthcare systems are prompting a shift towards more population-focused models of care. Nurse educators need to develop...

Zooming out to prioritise population health in nurse education

Journal Article
Lasater, K., Kyle, R. G., & Atherton, I. M. (2019)
Zooming out to prioritise population health in nurse education. Collegian, 26(5), 511-513. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2019.09.007
In this Editorial, we argue that zooming out to prioritise population health in nurse education can: (1) Redefine population health as praxis; (2) Reposition nursing as a sign...

Student nurses' attitudes to social justice and poverty: An international Comparison

Journal Article
Scheffer, M. M. J., Lasater, K., Atherton, I. M., & Kyle, R. G. (2019)
Student nurses' attitudes to social justice and poverty: An international Comparison. Nurse Education Today, 80, 59-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2019.06.007
Background: In both the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US), health inequities are proving resistant to improvement. Nurses are ideally placed to advocate for socia...

Testing the expert based weights used in the UK’s Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) against three preference-based methods

Journal Article
Watson, V., Dibben, C., Cox, M., Atherton, I., Sutton, M., & Ryan, M. (2019)
Testing the expert based weights used in the UK’s Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) against three preference-based methods. Social Indicators Research, 144(3), 1055-1074. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-02054-z
The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), used widely in England, is an important tool for social need and inequality identification. It summarises deprivation across seven dim...

Health-related behaviors of nurses and other healthcare professionals: a cross-sectional study using the Scottish Health Survey

Journal Article
Schneider, A., Bak, M., Mahoney, C., Hoyle, L., Ba, K., Atherton, I. M., & Kyle, R. G. (2019)
Health-related behaviors of nurses and other healthcare professionals: a cross-sectional study using the Scottish Health Survey. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 75(6), 1239-1251. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13926
Aims: To estimate the prevalence and co-occurrence of health-related behaviours among nurses in Scotland relative to other healthcare workers and those in non-healthcare occup...

A retrospective medical records review of risk factors for the development of respiratory tract secretions (death rattle) in the dying patient

Journal Article
Kolb, H., Snowden, A., Stevens, E., & Atherton, I. (2018)
A retrospective medical records review of risk factors for the development of respiratory tract secretions (death rattle) in the dying patient. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 74(7), 1639-1648. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13704
Aim: Identification of risk factors predicting the development of death rattle. Background: Respiratory tract secretions, often called death rattle, are among the most common ...

Obesity prevalence among healthcare professionals in England: a cross-sectional study using the Health Survey for England

Journal Article
Kyle, R. G., Wills, J., Mahoney, C., Hoyle, L., Kelly, M., & Atherton, I. M. (2017)
Obesity prevalence among healthcare professionals in England: a cross-sectional study using the Health Survey for England. BMJ Open, 7(12), https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018498
Objective: To estimate obesity prevalence among healthcare professionals in England and compare prevalence to those working outside of the health services. Design: Cross-secti...

Transfusing our lifeblood: Reframing research impact through inter-disciplinary collaboration between health geography and nurse education

Journal Article
Kyle, R. G., Atherton, I. M., Kesby, M., Sothern, M., & Andrews, G. (2016)
Transfusing our lifeblood: Reframing research impact through inter-disciplinary collaboration between health geography and nurse education. Social science & medicine, 168, 257-264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.08.002
Geographers have long grappled with how their research can positively impact individuals, communities and society. Demonstrating research impact is an increasingly important a...

Population health and nurse education – time to step-up

Journal Article
Atherton, I. M., Lasater, K., Richards, E. A., Mathews, L. R., Simpson, V., & Kyle, R. G. (2016)
Population health and nurse education – time to step-up. Nurse Education Today, 51, 117-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2016.08.002
Highlights •Contemporary trends in population health threaten the sustainability of current approaches to care delivery. •Health care professionals inevitably confront social ...

Biogeography as critical nursing pedagogy: Breathing life into nurse education

Journal Article
Kyle, R. G., & Atherton, I. M. (2016)
Biogeography as critical nursing pedagogy: Breathing life into nurse education. Nurse Education in Practice, 20, 76-79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2016.07.006
Insights from the social sciences, including geography, sociology, and anthropology, have long been incorporated into pre-registration nursing programmes. However, scholars ha...

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