Katherine is a clinical research fellow at the Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre, University of Edinburgh and Specialist Registrar in Geriatric and General Medicine. Her PhD is investigating geographical variation of dementia using routinely collected healthcare data (big data) in Scotland and New Zealand.
After completing her degree in Medicine from Newcastle University in 2007 (distinction) and a Masters of Research in 2006 (distinction), Katherine worked as a medical doctor in Newcastle, Edinburgh, Fife and Tayside and completed postgraduate examinations, MRCP and SCE diploma in Geriatric Medicine. During this time, she developed a growing interest in dementia clinical care and dementia research. Within research, Katherine is particularly interested in the use of routinely collected electronic health data and big data sets at a local and national level for dementia ascertainment and improving healthcare delivery for those living with dementia. With the unique identifier in healthcare (CHI number) in Scotland, she believes there is great potential to better understand dementia epidemiology and the use of healthcare services by those living with dementia by using routinely collected healthcare data/big data.
During her PhD studies, Katherine was awarded an MRC PhD Studentship travel grant to visit New Zealand. Whilst there Katherine formed collaborations with researchers to investigate dementia and geographical variation within their routinely collected national big data system (Integrated Data Infrastructure, IDI, System).
In 2020, they published their work investigating New Zealand’s dementia prevalence using nationally collected secondary care health big data from New Zealand. The methods in her publications have since been used by other dementia researchers and cited.
Within Scotland, Katherine is currently investigating dementia ascertainment and geographical variation (rural/urban differences) in the Scottish Mental Survey 1947 (SMS1947) which has been anonymously Chi-linked to healthcare data. Katherine is now in the final stages of writing up her thesis.
In the UK Katherine was involved, as part of a team, in helping establish the Ageing Data Research Collaborative (ADRC) which is a multi-disciplinary team of clinical academics working to progress the use of routinely collected healthcare data (big data) for research in the ageing population in the UK and linked with the British Geriatrics Society. The team have co-produced articles highlighting the need to progress big data research in ageing and created workshops at national/international meetings to further knowledge and discussion of this. With those interested in big data for ageing research, Katherine was also involved in the establishment of the Special Interest Group (SIG) in Big Data within the European Geriatric Medicine Society.
In the future, Katherine hopes to work clinically providing holistic dementia care in medicine, and to academically use her skills to analyse routinely collected healthcare data to improve our understanding of the epidemiology of dementia and healthcare delivery for dementia care.
Edinburgh explorer:
Katherine Walesby — https://edin.ac/3UocFPA