Warwick Health GRP: Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen an unprecedented mobilisation of science across the world. The Warwick Health GRP has been able to rapidly respond to the challenge by using its multidisciplinary expertise to support a wide range of projects and activities. This webinar will showcase two areas where members of the GRP are contributing to different aspects of the COVID-19 research – the psychological impact of the pandemic students and the analysis of UK mortality statistics. But it has also been ‘business as usual’ for the GRP in pursuing activities across our six priority research themes. So will also hear about work on screening for oral cancer in India, one of the research areas supported by our Global Health theme. We hope that you can join us for a stimulating webinar and an opportunity to engage with our researchers.

Friday 25 September 2020 - 11.00am-12.15pm

Registration

This session will be recorded.

Screening for Oral Cancer in India: A Feasibility Study

Professor Paramjit Gill, Professor of General Practice and a GP in Coventry and Dr. Roopa Hariprasad, Scientist E & Head, Division of Clinical Oncology, ICMR-National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research, India.

In this short talk, we will highlight the growing burden of oral cancer rates in India and present preliminary results of a feasibility study of screening by community health workers using cameras.

Warwick RECOVERS Study: Responding to COVID by Enhancing Resilience in Students

Dr Nicole Tang is a registered clinical and health psychologist with extensive research experience in sleep, insomnia, chronic pain and mental health. She is Director of the Warwick Sleep and Pain Laboratory and Academic Co-Lead of the Warwick Health Global Research Priority Mental Health Theme.

Abstract: COVID-19 has presented varying levels of stress and uncertainty to society worldwide. The economic, social and psychological impact of the social distancing measures have added to the growing challenge of maintaining positive mental health and wellbeing. Previous research on the consequences of SARS epidemic in China has shown a significant and long-lasting psychosocial impact of the crisis (Mak et al., 2009). Within Warwick, discussions with subgroups of students staying on campus amid university closure have revealed a high level of anxiety and unease. For the absolute majority of these students, the situation is precarious. It is unclear whether the levels of stress and uncertainty they experience is comparable to those normally associated with trauma, i.e., whether it can negatively affect important pillars of health (e.g., mood, sleep, physical activity), and whether it may aggravate psychiatric symptoms or extreme behaviour that warrant clinical attention. RECOVERS is a university-wide mental health screening and tracking study to try and answer these questions. Data collection is ongoing. In this webinar, Dr Tang will outline the study design and report on the progress of data collection.

The early pandemic paradox: fewer deaths in the first 4 months from December 2019 to March 2020 compared to the previous 5 years

Professor Theo Arvanitis Professor Theodoros N. Arvanitis holds the Chair of Digital Health Innovation and he is the Director of The Institute of Digital Healthcare, WMG, at University of Warwick. He is also an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, University of Birmingham. His research interests span the areas of biomedical engineering, neuroimaging and health informatics (clinical systems interoperability and clinical decision support systems), with a strong academic and industrial experience in software engineering for healthcare applications.

Professor Arvanitis will talk about the analysis of the mortality statistics in the United Kingdom during the initial phases of the severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic to understand the impact of the pandemic on national mortality figures.