Funding Awarded

All-Island – US National Cancer Institute Joint Doctoral Training Programme in Precision - Cancer Medicine

Proposal: A unique Doctoral Training Programme (DTP) in Precision Cancer Medicine (PCM), involving tripartite collaboration between research-intensive institutions with a major focus on cancer in Northern Ireland (NI) and Republic of Ireland (RoI), in partnership with the US National Cancer Institute...

An investigation of the long-term impact of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy on maternal health, and exploration of optimal models of follow-up care for affected women in Ireland.

Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) affect 18 million women annually. It is increasingly recognised that HDP are associated with increased risk of maternal cardiovascular and renal disease. Less is known about the risk of other chronic diseases, particularly those which emerge in older age, such as dementia, retinal vascular...

DEFINED: DEtermining Falls burden to INform carE Delivery

Background 

Falls in later life are the most frequent reason for older people to present to acute care, and significantly increase the likelihood of adverse health outcomes. Many falls are potentially preventable however, with comprehensive falls care reducing the rate of further falls by 20%....

Improving public health through better implementation of alcohol policy: A multi-method study examining and addressing the factors influencing successful implementation

Background: Alcohol consumption places an enormous burden on society, causing over 200 disease and injury conditions globally. In Ireland, at least four deaths every day are caused by alcohol, which is key a target area of the Healthy Ireland Framework. The  

RESTRICT - REducing intentional overdose: a mixed methods STudy of means RestrICTion interventions

Suicide and self-harm are serious public health problems, impacting significantly on individuals, families, communities, and health systems. Intentional drug overdose is the most common form of hospital-presenting self-harm and is a frequent method of suicide. Means restriction is an evidence informed measure to prevent suicide and...

Cerebral Palsy – The Adolescent Growth Evaluation Study (CP-AGE)

Background: Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common cause of long-term childhood disability.  In Ireland, ~110 children with CP are born annually with approximately 70% being able to walk with or without aids.  Some children with CP will experience a decline in walking related function through adolescence...

Artificial Intelligence approach to improving blood pressure treatment

Hypertension is the leading cause of premature death worldwide, but the prevalence of hypertension control remains low. Physician capacity (number of physician clinic visits available for hypertension care) is a critical rate-limiting, determinant of hypertension control resulting in a major care-gap in hypertension management in all...

Expecting the unexpected: can viral metagenomics enhance optimised standard diagnostic pathways for detection of imported pathogens?

Background 

Current testing practices for imported fever syndromes in Ireland are heterogenous and suboptimal, prolonging clinical care and limiting data capture for early warning surveillance systems. Identifying and diagnosing aetiological pathogens for imported fever syndromes with a standardised...

Personal formularies in general practice to support safe, effective and cost-effective prescribing.

The use of personal formularies of safe, effective medicines that a prescriber is readily familiar with may enhance the quality of prescribing. Additionally, there is evidence that audit and feedback can lead to improvements in prescribing.  The Drug Utilisation 90% (DU90%), (the number of medicines making up 90% of a doctor’s...

The HipCog Study: evaluating the impact of cognitive impairment on outcomes for older adults with hip fracture

Background: Over 3800 older people in Ireland experience hip fracture annually. These serious events have a one-year mortality rate of 20%. Since 2012, the Irish Hip Fracture Database (IHFD) has driven national clinical improvement and reduced variability of care across hospitals. While hospital-level care variation has decreased, it...

Targeting immunometabolism to protect children from Tuberculosis infection

Introduction 

Tuberculosis is the top global infectious killer in the last decade. The neonatal period is the most susceptible time to TB infection, with increased risk of active and disseminated disease. TB treatments require months of multiple drugs and resistance to first line agents is increasing...

Identifying social determinants and mapping organisational and personal networks to enhance community support for people living with multimorbidity

Socially and economically deprived populations experience greater risk and earlier onset of multimorbidity. Healthcare services are one part of complex networks supporting people with chronic conditions. but knowledge of people’s social networks has not been used to inform and tailor chronic disease policy and programmes. Intersectoral...

Optimising the dissemination of health research in Ireland

Scientific publications have grown exponentially in recent years, contributing to an ‘infodemic’ widely seen during the Covid-19 pandemic. Public communication of scientific research can occur through individual researchers directly connecting with the public via social media or outreach events, however, many researchers struggle...

Revisiting suicide prevention in later life: human-centred approaches in an ageing Ireland

Globally, suicide is more prevalent in older adults when compared to any other age group. This is partly due to the fact that self-harm is more lethal among older adults, and this cohort has complex health conditions which influence recovery. Over the last six years, I have conducted research examining self-harm and suicidality in...

A functional genomics pipeline for genetic discovery in diabetic kidney disease

Diabetes is responsible for a large proportion of chronic kidney disease (CKD), end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), blindness, amputation, heart disease and stroke. Tight glycemic control in type 1 diabetes (T1D) or type 2 diabetes (T2D) can delay or arrest the progression of microvascular complications. How hyperglycemia...

Advanced, automated compound screening for the identification of therapeutic agents in Multiple Sulfatase Deficiency.

Multiple Sulfatase Deficiency (MSD) is an extremely rare, fatal, yet untreatable condition. It is caused by the inherited deficiency of an enzyme (called FGE) that activates a whole family of 17 other cellular enzymes named sulfatases. Sulfatases are indispensable for the degradation of a subset of intracellular molecules. Thus,...

Health system foundations for effective Regional Integrated Care Organisations (RICOs) - co-producing evidence to inform the design of regional organisations to support integrated care in Ireland

Health systems all over the world are struggling to provide equitable access to integrated, patient centred services that better meets the needs of individuals and populations. In Ireland, the way our health system is funded and structured creates particular barriers for people trying to access effective, responsive, quality...

Implementation of Making Every Contact Count (MECC): developing a collaborative strategy to optimise and scale-up MECC.

Importance of the study:
Many chronic illnesses can be prevented if people adopt healthier behaviours. The Making Every Contact Count (MECC) programme, developed by the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE), aims to train all healthcare professionals to support patients to make healthier lifestyle choices during...

Implementation of a Frailty Care Bundle for older adults in acute care

During hospital admission, older patients often reduce their walking activity and nutrition intake due to illness. However, research suggests that inflexible hospital routines, lack of patient awareness and limited nursing attention are also factors. Long periods of inactivity combined with suboptimal nutrition cause leg muscle...

Embedding collective leadership to foster collaborative inter-professional working in the care of older people (Eclectic)

Recent government policy in Ireland has emphasised the importance of supporting older people to live well in their homes and communities. This would mean fewer older people will have to go to hospitals to receive health care. In order to do this it is necessary for healthcare professionals to work as a team to manage the care of...

Improving transition from child to adult health services for young people with cerebral palsy living in Ireland.

In Ireland, people with cerebral palsy (CP) receive healthcare from children's services up to the age of 18, after which they transfer to adult services. Poor management of the transition from child to adult health services can lead to poor health and increased hospital admissions. While there are practices that health professionals...

Evidence-based guidance in general practice: exploring general practitioner preferences, content prioritisation and dissemination

General practitioners (GPs) need resources to support their use of the most up to date information in their clinical practice. This is to make sure that patients are receiving the best care possible from their GP.Th e Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) produces research update guides for GPs to support their management of...

Good vigilance practice in pregnancy: A multistakeholder approach to optimising the effectiveness of risk minimisation measures to prevent harms from teratogenic medicines

When new medicines are approved for use in the general population the drug company responsible for the medicine has to make sure that certain measures are in place to avoid unnecessary harm. These are known as risk minimisation measures (RMMs). This is particularly important when the medicine may cause harmful effects to an unborn...

Co-producing health and well-being in partnership with patients, families and communities: the role of the epilepsy patient portal

Claire a 35 year old teacher with a 10 year history of epilepsy attends the Galway University Hospital (GUH) where an electronic patient record (EPR) is used by the epilepsy service. Recently on a weekend trip to Waterford, Claire had a seizure resulting in a fall in the street and a minor injury. She was taken to the emergency...

Enhancing existing formal home support to improve and maintain functional status in older adults: A feasibility study on the implementation of the Care to Move (CTM) programme

Ireland has an increasing ageing population and this has created the need for better and more integrated health and social care services. The benefits of physical activity for all ages are widely known. Physical activity programmes have been shown to improve older adults’ health and well-being and reduce falls, enabling the older adult...

Loneliness and health: the moderating role of befriending services.

Befriending services deliver companionship to older adults through regular volunteer visits. ALONE is a charitable organisation providing befriending services to older adults in Ireland. It is the mission statement of ALONE to use befriending to reduce the negative impact loneliness has on health, but evidence for this use of...

Premature Ageing in long-Term Homeless adults (PATH)

The number of homeless adults in Ireland is rising. Homeless people have more chronic illnesses and a shorter
life-expectancy than people who have somewhere secure to live. We have carried out a pilot study showing that
homeless people have dementia, frailty and other diseases associated with ageing at a much younger age...

Unlocking the potential of healthcare complaints to improve hospital care (UP-CIC)

Most assessments of quality of care in Irish healthcare services are focused on healthcare workers’ opinions, statistics (e.g., how many patients got infections), or investigating large errors. However, these assessments fail to consider patients’ unique insights into quality of care and support improvement in services. For example,...

I-PARC (Ireland’s Physical Activity Research Collaboration): Bridging the research to action gap to support the implementation of the National Physical Activity Plan

The purpose of this research is to develop a bespoke research collaboration ‘I-PARC’ (Irish – Physical Activity Research Collaboration) to support Get Ireland Active! the National Physical Activity Plan (NPAP)1. I-PARC will bring together researchers, policy makers and practitioners from physical activity (PA) to establish how best to...

Implementing evidence based guidance for dementia palliative care through participatory action research

Dementia is a progressive illness and as the condition progresses into the later stages, the person will have difficulty communicating their needs particularly in relation to thirst, hunger, pain or discomfort.  In Ireland persons with dementia are often cared for in Long Term Care (LTC) settings. Carers of persons with dementia...

Implementing evidence based guidance for dementia palliative care through participatory action research

Dementia is a progressive illness and as the condition progresses into the later stages, the person will have difficulty communicating their needs particularly in relation to thirst, hunger, pain or discomfort. In Ireland persons with dementia are often cared for in Long Term Care (LTC) settings. Carers of persons with dementia can...

The implementation of National Clinical Effectiveness Committee clinical guidelines relating to health care associated infections in Irish healthcare organisations: multiple perspectives

Background: Healthcare associated infections (HCAI) create a major burden on individuals, their families, and the health services. They lead to longer stays in hospital, higher risk of death, and increased frequency of other health problems such as heart failure, and pneumonia. All of this also contributes to greatly increased...

Enhancing doctors' engagement with regulation of professional competence

In the field of medicine, information about how best to care for patients is constantly changing. Since 2011, medical doctors in Ireland are required by law to demonstrate that they are taking part in educational activities to keep them up to date. The aim of this requirement is to reassure the public that their doctors are competent...

EOLAS: Building capacity for collaborative education between service users, family members and practitioners within mental health services

Background: Service users and families need information so they can take charge of their own recovery and relationship with the mental health system. To support this, we developed and delivered 2 mental health information programmes (the EOLAS Programmes), to over 800 service users and family members. The programmes were on recovery...

Promoting Assisted Decision Making in Acute Care Settings (PADMACS) for care planning purposes

This project aims to produce an educational interactive game which will support health and social care professionals working in acute hospitals to include their patients in decisions about treatment and care plans. Decision-making capacity is the ability to make decisions for one-self. In some cases an older person may experience...

Out of hospital cardiac arrest and community first response: International best practice, national consultation and prospective evaluation

Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly ceases to pump blood around the body. The term 'Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest' (OHCA) is used to describe incidents where cardiac arrest occurs unexpectedly and is responded to by statutory emergency medical services (EMS). OHCA causes approximately 1,900 unexpected deaths in Ireland every...

Lifetime exposure to community water fluoridation and associations with key indicators of health in community-dwelling adults aged 50 years and over in Ireland

The main aim of this project is to provide evidence that informs future policy about water fluoridation in Ireland. Community water fluoridation has existed in Ireland since 1964, so it is important to examine any association between long term exposure to water fluoridation and general health status. Such an assessment is a requirement...

What influences cervical screening uptake in older women and how can screening programmes translate this knowledge into behaviour changing strategies? A CERVIVA-CervicalCheck co-production project

Most cervical cancers can be prevented by detecting early changes in the cervix which, if not found, could progress to cancer. This is done by testing cells from the cervix in a smear test. CervicalCheck, the Irish National Cervical Screening programme, started in 2008 and offers free tests to women aged 25-60. For the programme to be...

Resource allocation, priority-setting and consensus in dementia care in Ireland

A key action under the National Dementia Strategy (2014) is the delivery of appropriate supports and services for people with dementia that can be accessed in people's own homes and local communities. There is also an emphasis in the Strategy to address the individual needs of people with dementia and their carers in a manner that is...

Traumatic brain injury: epidemiology and rehabilitation in Ireland

Traumatic brain injury (TBI, informally known as head injury) is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide1. Neither the number of people affected by TBI, nor the severity of the disability caused, in Ireland, is known. This makes it hard to plan the specialised neuro-rehabilitation services, which are under-developed and...

The utility of high-tech drug analysis to the decision maker

The Health (Pricing and Supply) Act 2013 stipulates that the payer must consider the cost-effectiveness (the likelihood that the drug will offer value for money) and the likely cost impact of a new drug prior to deciding if it should be reimbursed. It also states that, after a 3-5 year period, continued reimbursement must be reviewed....

Longitudinal profiling of adverse events in Irish hospitals and provision of a standardised assessment tool to the Irish healthcare system: the INAES-2 study

Adverse events (AEs) are unintended injuries or complications that are caused by healthcare management, rather than a patient's underlying disease, which lead to death, disability at the time of hospital discharge, prolonged hospital stay or subsequent hospitalisation. The first Irish National Adverse Events Study (INAES) determined...