Posted on July 26, 2018 by Niroshan Siriwardena

How we are making a difference

CaHRU’s research impact has now been captured in a series of stunning infographics created by student intern Beth Warman and accessed via our page ‘How we are making a difference‘. Beth, after studying a number of impact case studies produced by Professor Niro Siriwardena and the team describing the effect of CaHRU’s research on “change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia”, developed this evidence into the infographics. These capture how CaHRU’s research is making a difference in a visual form, accessible to the general public as well as the scientific community in a number of topics including: sleep and insomnia, prehospital outcome measures, flu vaccination uptake, large-scale healthcare quality improvement programmes, new prehospital ambulance pathways, and reliable, valid and fair licensing exams for doctors.

Beth, a student in psychology recently graduated and is going on to study for her PhD entitled ‘Character strengths, mindfulness and pro-environmental behaviours: how awareness of one’s strengths affects engagement in sustainability’. She will be looking at mindfulness and the positive psychological traits most strongly associated with being eco-friendly.

She is also due to start as a research assistant, working with Dr Roger Bretherton on a project called ‘The character course: design, dissemination and evaluation of a church-based small group programme for character development’. This will involve creating a church-based multimedia course to encourage people’s use of certain personal strengths (in this case, learning, hope, love, forgiveness, gratitude, humour, persistence and curiosity). We wish her the best in her future endeavours and thank her for the work she has done with CaHRU.

By Prof Niro Siriwardena

Posted on March 22, 2018 by Niroshan Siriwardena

CaHRU professors contribute to PEARL Conference

HAPPI group

Professors Graham Law and Niro Siriwardena contributed to the Public Engagement for All with Research in Lincolnshire (PEARL) conference which took place at the Cargill Lecture theatre at the University of Lincoln on 21 March 2018. PEARL is an initiative led by Professors Carenza Lewis (Professor for the Public Understanding of Science) and Tim Hodgson (Professor of Psychology) at the University of Lincoln. The conference introduced by Prof Lewis sought to showcase and share publicly engaged research at the University. Prof Hodgson introduced the speakers at the event.

The first speaker was Professor Siriwardena who spoke on ‘From conception to dissemination: involving patients and the public in community and health research’, presenting CaHRU’s work supported by the Healthier Aging Patient and Public Involvement (HAPPI) group. This included the involvement of patients in the Resources for Effective Sleep Treatment (REST) study and the animation produced by the Prehospital Outcomes for Evidence Based Evaluation (PhOEBE) PPI group to help disseminate the work of the 5-year NIHR programme.

Professor Graham Law’s talk entitled ‘Pushing at an open door: sleep research and people’ continued the theme of insomnia research at CaHRU, presenting work on the link between insomnia and disease and his wide engagement with the general public through his books, public lectures and research to raise awareness of the importance of insomnia and the myths surrounding sleep.

There were a number of other speakers from across the university whcih showed the extent and depth of public engagement with research at the university.

By Profs Graham Law and Niro Siriwardena

Posted on October 8, 2017 by Niroshan Siriwardena

CaHRU team contribute to LiGHTS Expo 2017

Three members of the CaHRU team, Professor Niro Siriwardena, Dr Stephanie Armstrong and Greg Whitley (paramedic and doctoral student) led an interactive exploration of the latest research and innovation in ambulance care in a session entitled ‘Innovations in ambulance service care: ‘bangs, brains and hearts’ as part of the Lincoln Get Hold of Technology and Science (LiGHTS) Expo on 29 September 2017.

The seminar was presented twice to around 40 members of the public in all aged 7 to 60+ years. It explored the kind of care we can expect currently from ambulance services. The team explained how today’s ambulance service is about far more than transporting people to hospital. Prof Siriwardena discussed how ambulance services should be measured using an animation from the Prehospital Outcomes for Evidence Based Evaluation (PhOEBE) programme. Steph Armstrong discussed ‘Why do ambulance research and how difficult is it?’ exploring the difficulties of randomising patients and gaining consent in this setting. Prof Siriwardena then spoke about the use of GTN (also known as nitroglycerine, a component of dynamite) for stroke in the RIGHT2 trial and Greg Whitley, paramedic on the AIRWAYS2 trial explained the different airways device being tested in the study.

The seminar continued with a hands-on exercise involving cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, looking at airway devices and listening to heart sounds with a stethoscope. There was also plenty of audience participation with questions, answers and prizes! Prof Siriwardena and Dr Stephanie Armstrong gave an interview to Melvyn Prior at BBC Radio Lincolnshire as part of the event.

Community and Health Research Unit

High quality health research for quality improvement in health and social care.

Tag Archives: public engagement

How we are making a difference

CaHRU professors contribute to PEARL Conference

CaHRU team contribute to LiGHTS Expo 2017