Iain Atherton
Iain Atherton

Dr Iain Atherton

Senior Lecturer

 0131 455 2745

  I.Atherton@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

Iain is a Registered General Nurse whose passion if for evidence and the contribution it can make to practice. After working in a range of clinical settings, in the NHS and for an aid organisation in Romania, he moved into academia. After completing a first degree in Development Studies, he completed a masters degree in Medical Demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a PhD at the University of St Andrews.

Since 2016 he has 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.
He leads a team of two (soon to be three) research fellows on 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 veterans’ community. This work is also linking in colleagues across the university to utilise readily available data to answer key policy relevant questions.

He was lead for Edinburgh Napier University’s development of a submission for Unit of Assessment 3 to REF 2021 between 2016 and 2019. He is also the university’s named contact for submissions to the Scottish Graduate School for the Social Sciences associated to Unit of Assessment 3 (Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy).

School

Research Groups

Research Areas

Events

Esteem

Conference Organising Activity

  • Scientific advisory group - International Medical Geographies Symposium
  • Organiser symposium on ‘Big Data’, RCN Research Conference, University of Nottingham. Notes: Participation by academics from University of Nottingham, University of Hull, University of the West of Scotland, Edinburgh University, and Edinburgh Napier Unive
  • 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

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Rated award
  • Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society

 

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

  • 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
  • NETNEP International Nurse Education Conference, Brisbane Australia (April 2016).
  • Scottish Longitudinal Studies Roadshow
  • Scotstat Data Linkage Conference, Edinburgh (2012).
  • NETNEP International Nurse Education Conference, Netherlands (June 2014).
  • Medical and Nursing Faculties, University of Queensland, Australia (April 2016).
  • Scottish Blackboard Users Group (Scot-BUG) (2014).
  • Health and homelessness Conference, NHS Edinburgh, August, 2011.

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • PhD examination
  • PhD Examination
  • MRes examination

 

Reviewing

  • Peer review of journals: BMJ, Ageing and Society, Social Science and Medicine, Nursing and Health, Nursing Standard,and Population Space and Place.
  • Member of Nursing and Midwifery Council Thought Leadership Group
  • Appointed to Economic and Social Research Council Peer Review College (2015)

 

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Date


66 results

Applied Social Science for Nursing Students

Book
Atherton, I., & Molesworth, M. (2024)
Applied Social Science for Nursing Students. London: SAGE Publications
This book introduces the essential social science that you need in order to register and practice effectively as a nurse. Contributions from the social sciences enable you to ...

Individuals who lived alone or with an unpaid carer approaching the end of life at 2001 and 2011 census in Scotland

Report
Savinc, J., & Atherton, I. (2023)
Individuals who lived alone or with an unpaid carer approaching the end of life at 2001 and 2011 census in Scotland. Scottish Government
The census provides invaluable information on Scotland’s population and linking it to other data enables analysis of specific groups to inform policy. The following briefing p...

Have increased deaths at home during the pandemic returned to pre-pandemic levels? An analysis of publicly available Scottish death registrations

Journal Article
Savinc, J., & Atherton, I. M. (2023)
Have increased deaths at home during the pandemic returned to pre-pandemic levels? An analysis of publicly available Scottish death registrations. Journal of Public Health, 45(4), e664–e667. https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdad156
Deaths at home increased in Scotland at the start of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic by ~35%. The majority did not involve COVID-19. This has implications for...

Differences in end-of-life health service usage between people who died at home before and during the pandemic in Scotland

Journal Article
Savinc, J., & Atherton, I. (2022)
Differences in end-of-life health service usage between people who died at home before and during the pandemic in Scotland. International Journal of Population Data Science, 7(3), https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v7i3.1880
Objectives To compare health service usage of people who died at home in Scotland during the Covid-19 pandemic to the population who died at home prior to the pandemic, as a p...

Differences in end-of-life hospitalisation patterns between people who died at home before and during the pandemic in Scotland (Preliminary results)

Presentation / Conference
Savinc, J., & Atherton, I. (2022, June)
Differences in end-of-life hospitalisation patterns between people who died at home before and during the pandemic in Scotland (Preliminary results). Paper presented at 19th International Medical Geography Symposium (IMGS 2022), Edinburgh
Deaths at home in Scotland increased by approximately 36% in 2020 and 2021 compared to the 2015-2019 period. Only about 2% of home deaths were Covid-related. This represented ...

Are deprivation-specific cancer survival patterns similar according to individual- and area-based measures? A cohort study of patients diagnosed with five malignancies in England & Wales, 2008-2016

Journal Article
Woods, L. M., Belot, A., Atherton, I., Ellis-Brookes, L., Baker, M., & Ingleby, F. C. (2022)
Are deprivation-specific cancer survival patterns similar according to individual- and area-based measures? A cohort study of patients diagnosed with five malignancies in England & Wales, 2008-2016. BMJ Open, 12(6), Article e058411. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-058411
Objective: To investigate if measured inequalities in cancer survival differ when using individual- (‘person’) compared to area- (‘place’) based measures of deprivation for th...

Data insights: Community Mortality Due to Covid-19: Differences in Age Distribution Between Care Home Residents and the General Population

Report
Henderson, D., Savinc, J., & Atherton, I. (2022)
Data insights: Community Mortality Due to Covid-19: Differences in Age Distribution Between Care Home Residents and the General Population. ESRC
This project explores the risk of mortality due to Covid-19 and other causes for people aged 65+ in Scotland between 1st March and 30th June 2020.

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 ...

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...

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • Nursing Education: what can perspectives from the social sciences contribute?

Current Post Grad projects

Previous Post Grad projects

Non-Napier PhD or MSc by Research supervisions

  • Supervision of PhD