Vasiliki Kiparoglou

University of Oxford | OX · Department of Primary Care Health Sciences

Background: Citizen science approaches are widely and successfully used in biological, environmental, and ecological sciences; however, they are rarely applied in other domains, such as translational health research, notably in the field of liver disease and metabolism. This citizen science study aims to explore the application of the citizen scien...

With over 5 million COVID-19 deaths at the time of writing, the response of research leaders was and is critical to developing treatments to control the global pandemic. As clinical research leaders urgently repurposed existing research programmes and resources towards the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an opportunity to reflect on practices observed...

Background The need to improve gender equity (GE) in academic medicine is well documented. Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs), partnerships between leading National Health Service (NHS) organizations and universities in England, conduct world-class translational research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). In 2011,...

A citizen science initiative on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Background The need to improve gender equity (GE) in academic medicine is well documented. Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs), partnerships between leading National Health Service (NHS) organisations and universities in England, conduct world-class translational research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). In 2011, eligibil...

The objective was to identify translational researchers' training and development needs, preferences, and barriers to attending training. This cross-sectional study involved an online questionnaire survey. The research population comprised a convenience sample of translational researchers and support staff (N = 798) affiliated with the National Ins...

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed a spotlight on the resilience of healthcare systems, and their ability to cope efficiently and effectively with unexpected crises. If we are to learn one economic lesson from the pandemic, arguably it is the perils of an overfocus on short-term allocative efficiency at the price of lack of capacity to deal with uncert...

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 of coherence (SoC), a factor hypothesised to promote wellbeing, may moderate these associations is unknown. A model of physical, environmental and social factors on quality o...

Objective: To assess the training and development needs of researchers and support staff affiliated to the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), one of the largest BRCs in England, and to find out about their past experiences of training. Design: A cross-sectional online questionnaire survey. Setting and Participants: A convenience sample o...

Background The need to improve gender equity (GE) in academic medicine is well documented. Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs), partnerships between leading National Health Service (NHS) organisations and universities in England, conduct world-class translational research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). In 2011, eligibil...

Background Loneliness is a serious public health issue, and its burden is increasing in many countries. Loneliness affects social, physical, and mental health, and it is associated with multimorbidity and premature mortality. In addition to social interventions, a range of digital technology interventions (DTIs) are being used to tackle loneliness....

Objective Scientific authorship is a vital marker of achievement in academic careers and gender equity is a key performance metric in research. However, there is little understanding of gender equity in publications in biomedical research centres funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). This study assesses the gender parity in s...

The focus of this perspective is on lockdown loneliness, which we define as loneliness resulting from social disconnection as a result of enforced social distancing and lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also explore the role of digital technology in tackling lockdown loneliness amid the pandemic. In this regard, we highlight and discuss a...

Background The underrepresentation of women in academic medicine at senior level and in leadership positions is well documented. Biomedical Research Centres (BRC), partnerships between leading National Health Service (NHS) organisations and universities, conduct world class translational research funded by the National Institute for Health Research...

BACKGROUND Loneliness is a serious public health issue, and its burden is increasing in many countries. Loneliness affects social, physical, and mental health, and it is associated with multimorbidity and premature mortality. In addition to social interventions, a range of digital technology interventions (DTIs) are being used to tackle loneliness....

Objective: To review the latest literature on the effectiveness of DTIs in reducing loneliness in (older) adults. Data Sources: Electronic searches in PubMed, Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE and Web of Science covering publication period from 1 January 2010 to 31 July 2019. Subjects: Adult men and women Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis Main Outc...

UNSTRUCTURED The focus of this perspective is on lockdown loneliness, which we define as loneliness resulting from social disconnection as a result of enforced social distancing and lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also explore the role of digital technology in tackling lockdown loneliness amid the pandemic. In this regard, we highlight a...

Objective: Scientific authorship is a vital marker of success in academic careers and gender equity is a key performance metric in research. However, there is little understanding of gender equity in publications in biomedical research centres funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). This study assesses the gender parity in scie...

Background Given the complex mix of structural, cultural and institutional factors that produce barriers for women in science, an equally complex intervention is required to understand and address them. The Athena SWAN Award Scheme for Gender Equality has become a widespread means to address barriers for women’s advancement and leadership in the Un...

Background: The underrepresentation of women in academic medicine at senior level and in leadership positions is well documented. In the United Kingdom, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) announced that eligibility for funding for Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) required at least Silver award status of the Athena SWAN Charter. How...

Background The impact of disability, long term conditions, rurality, living alone, and being a carer on health has some evidence base. The extent to which a strong sense of coherence, a factor hypothesised to promote wellbeing, may moderate these associations is unknown. A model of physical, environmental and social factors on quality of life was t...

Background Loneliness is an emerging public health issue and its burden is increasing in developed countries. Loneliness is associated with social, emotional, physical and mental health issues. Tackling loneliness is important to reduce its adverse impacts on individuals with loneliness and their families. Various digital technology-based intervent...

Introduction: Loneliness is an emerging public health problem that is associated with social, emotional, mental and physical health issues. The application of digital technology (DT) interventions to reduce loneliness has significantly increased in the recent years. The effectiveness of DT interventions needs to be assessed systematically. Methods...

Introduction Loneliness is an emerging public health problem that is associated with social, emotional, mental and physical health issues. The application of digital technology (DT) interventions to reduce loneliness has significantly increased in the recent years. The effectiveness of DT interventions needs to be assessed systematically. Methods...

Introduction Loneliness is an emerging public health problem, which is associated with social, emotional, mental and physical health issues. The application of digital technology (DT) interventions to reduce loneliness has increased in recent years. The effectiveness of DT interventions needs to be assessed systematically. Methods and analysis Aim:...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0214361.].

Quantifying the value of investment in medical research can inform decision-making on the prioritisation of research programmes. Existing methodologies to estimate the rate of return of medical research are inappropriate for early-phase translational research due to censoring of health benefits and time lags. A strategy to improve the process of tr...

Matrix of technical coefficients and interdependencies. Supplementary Table reporting the technical coefficients for each industry as well as the interdependencies across industrial sectors. The Table can be viewed as a single .pdf document. (PDF)

Definition of the 10 broad industry classifications. Supplementary Table defining each of the 10 broad industry classifications. The Table is proudced using the “longtable” package in LaTeX and can be viewed as a single .pdf document. (PDF)

Background The National Health System in Wales has developed a novel national electronic dashboard which reports a daily “escalation score,” reflecting management’s opinion of the pressure each hospital is facing, primarily due to unscheduled care. The aim of this study was to examine the possibility of replacing human scores with a quantitative mo...

Background: Promoting Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is a major strategy of the "Science with and for Society" work program of the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. RRI aims to achieve a better alignment of research and innovation with the values, needs, and expectations of society. The RRI s...

Background Given that the complex mix of structural, cultural, and institutional factors has produced barriers for women in science, an equally complex intervention is required to understand and address them. The Athena SWAN award scheme for gender equality has become a widespread means to address barriers for women’s advancement and leadership in...

BACKGROUND Promoting Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is a major strategy of the “Science with and for Society” work programme of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. RRI aims to achieve a better alignment of research and innovation with the values, needs, and expectations of society. The RRI s...

Background: Smoking cessation services provide support to smokers who desire to quit. Published studies to date have looked at the cost and benefit of service provision but typically focus on clinical trial data. Using routinely collected observational data, this study examined the costs involved in providing a service in terms of average health c...

Background: Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) are partnerships between healthcare organisations and universities in England. Their mission is to generate novel treatments, technologies, diagnostics and other interventions that increase the country's international competitiveness, to rapidly translate these innovations into benefits for patients,...

Background Biomedical research can have impacts on patient care at research-active hospitals. We qualitatively evaluated the impact of the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (Oxford BRC), a university-hospital partnership, on the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare in local hospitals. Effectiveness and efficiency are conceptualised in terms o...

Global investment in biomedical research has grown significantly over the last decades, reaching approximately a quarter of a trillion US dollars in 2010. However, not all of this investment is distributed evenly by gender. It follows, arguably, that scarce research resources may not be optimally invested (by either not supporting the best science...

Introduction Translational research organisations (TROs) are a core component of the UK's expanding research base. Equity of career opportunity is key to ensuring a diverse and internationally competitive workforce. The UK now requires TROs to demonstrate how they are supporting gender equity. Yet, the evidence base for documenting such efforts is...

Background A web-based tool was developed and piloted by being made available to healthcare staff in Wales from September 2012 to March 2013. This evaluation included two primary outcome measures: general health and mental well-being, and six secondary outcome measures: sickness absence, alcohol use, healthy eating, smoking, physical activity and m...

The first step to achieving an understanding of how complex adaptive systems such as enterprises can be made more resilient is to understand what is meant by ‘resilience’. Resilience as a concept has been contextually developed in a wide range of disciplines, providing a variety of resilience concepts of various foci and potential relevance to ente...

This paper presents the results of the CuReSS Project and demonstrates how the use of systems thinking principles and systems thinking methods, combined with an exploration of the human body's achievement of resilience, have contributed to the development of a ‘Blueprint’ for resilience. SSM is used to draw together viewpoints from fields including...