ARC NWC Fellow and 3rd year PhD student, Lucy Kaluvu, is undertaking a epidemiological study in St.Helens examining multimorbidity clustering and socioeconomic deprivation and its effect on the utilisation of health and social care services and treatment burden.

Study findings will yield evidence-based recommendations that will guide the planning of health services that directly cater to patients with multiple chronic conditions.

The PhD project seeks to address a significant clinical and public health topic, and key priority area for the NIHR.

Lucy, who works alongside the ARC NWC Equitable Place-Based Health and Care theme, said: “Health inequalities and intersectionality are a focal point of the research project. The North-South divide in England has highlighted the socioeconomic and cultural differences that continue to impact the provision and uptake of health services.

“I am specifically keen on identifying the impact of the acquisition of long-term chronic conditions within the multimorbidity cascade on health and social care service use using the John Hopkins Adjusted Clinical Group (ACG) system.”

Several organisations have a collaborative role within the research including the St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Graphnet Health Limited, the Combined Intelligence for Population Health Action (CIPHA), and the St Helens Clinical Commissioning Group.

“The study is being undertaken in St Helens which is a socioeconomically deprived area in the Cheshire and Merseyside footprint and it is representative of the many deprived areas in the North of England. Project outputs will be a conduit for local policy changes aimed at addressing health inequalities in the region.”

“CIPHA has vast interests in promoting population health and delivering local and national changes within the NHS.I am pleased to say the research project has also attracted industry funding from Graphnet Health Limited to collaborate on the development of a multimorbidity intelligence dashboard.”

Based at ARC NWC member organisation Edge Hill University, Lucy added: “I am making use of an integrated Shared Care record for the Cheshire and Merseyside footprint delivered through the Combined Intelligence for Population Health Action (CIPHA) to identify priority multimorbidity clusters have high use of primary, secondary and social care services.”

As a member of the UK Implementation Society Lucy will use her platform to disseminate project findings and engage with researchers and policy makers.

From design to dissemination public involvement wil be embedded at each stage of her project. “The ARC NWC Patient and Public Advisers Dorcas Akeju and Saiqa Ahmed have been instrumental in the design and development of study material.

They have advised on the identification of key health inequalities of interest and will be directly involved in the dissemination of study findings”.

As a recipient of the 2022 NIHR Short Placement for Research Collaboration award, Lucy will be working in tandem with the NIHR funded Artificial Intelligence and Multimorbidity Development and Validation of Population Clusters for Integrating Health and Social Care study (Cluster AIM).

“With recent developments in the use of Artificial Intelligence to map distinct clinically relevant clusters and predict key health outcomes such as mortality, health service utilisation.

I am eager to advance my epidemiological skills in advanced big data, the use of AI in clustering and co-develop knowledge products as part of a multidisciplinary team of data scientists, epidemiologists, clinicians and public health professionals “

Read more about Lucy here.

Learn more about Lucy’s work.

Information about the next round of fellowships can be accessed here.

(Pictured, above) Lucy at the 2022 NIHR Doctoral Research Training Camp where she was responding to panel questions on health inequalities and social determinants of health.