Swansea University, in collaboration with Birmingham and Oxford Universities, has secured funding to use AI to better understand multi-morbidity. The partnership is among 22 AI for health research projects that share £13 million from the UKRI. The projects aim to transform health using artificial intelligence (AI) to assist and refine diagnostics and procedures.
Funding from the UKRI Technology Missions Fund
The projects will involve universities stretching from Edinburgh to Surrey. They will be supported by the UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Technology Missions Fund to support AI innovation to accelerate health research.
Using AI to better understand multimorbidity
The Data Lab team based in the National Centre for Population Health & Wellbeing Research at Swansea University, along with Oxford and Birmingham universities, are working in partnership on this new research to better understand multi-morbidity. Multi-morbidity is the existence of two or more long-term health conditions and is one of healthcare’s biggest challenges.
The project, led by Oxford University, has secured £640,000 to accelerate research into a foundation AI model for clinical risk prediction that could determine the likelihood of future health problems based on an individual’s existing conditions.
Improving health diagnostics and outcomes
Dr Kedar Pandya, Executive Director Cross-Council Programmes at UKRI, said: The potential for AI to accelerate and improve all aspects of our health is vast.
The UK is in a strong position in this field, but with a range of challenges across many aspects of society, including the healthcare system, novel solutions are needed. That is why UKRI is investing in these projects in order to advance our research and improve health diagnostics and outcomes.
Professor Sinead Brophy, Director of the National Centre for Population Health & Wellbeing Research, said: “This work is taking a new pioneering approach to understanding disease and how one condition can lead to another and another condition in the same person, there needs to be a new approach to tackling multiple complex diseases, and we at the Data Lab are very proud to be part of the ground-breaking work of Professor Yau and his team in Oxford University”.
Read more about the 22 projects and funding on the UKRI website.
The National Centre for Population Health and Wellbeing Research is funded by the Welsh Government through Health and Care Research Wales.