About
Prof Nisreen Alwan is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Southampton and an Honorary Consultant in Public Health at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. She does research around how to prevent disease and optimise the wellbeing of young families leading to better long-term health and focusing on narrowing health inequalities. Prof Alwan has contributed to the public health response to the pandemic, particularly focusing on the recognition and the quantification of morbidity from COVID19, having initiated the call to Count ‘Long COVID’. She was awarded an MBE for services to Medicine and Public Health during the COVID19 pandemic in the Queen’s New Year Honours 2021. She was also named amongst other inspiring and influential women from around the world in the BBC 100 Women 2020 list. She is now doing research on Long Covid particularly focusing on inequalities in prevention, recognition and care.
Prof Alwan qualified in Medicine and obtained the membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP UK). She then pursued a career in Public Health Medicine by obtaining a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of Nottingham and then joining the Public Health Specialist Training Programme in the Yorkshire and Humber Region. During that time, she secured a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship based at the University of Leeds, obtaining an MSc in Statistical Epidemiology and a PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology as part of that. She is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health (FFPH).
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Public Health
- Lifecourse Epidemiology
- Long Covid
- Maternal and Child Health
- Obesity
Current research
- Healthy Communities Theme Lead - NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Wessex
- Multidisciplinary Ecosystem to study Lifecourse Determinants and Prevention of Early-onset Burdensome Multimorbidity (MELD-B)
-
Hearing from the unheard: impact of long-COVID in minority ethnic groups in the UK (Hi-COVE)
- STIMULATE-ICP (Symptoms, Trajectory, Inequalities and Management: Understanding Long-COVID to Address and Transform Existing Integrated Care Pathways)
- Characteristics of Long Covid and Long Covid stigma
- Wessex DIET: Determining the Impact of food insEcurity in young families and Testing interventions
- Combining individual and area-based measures of disadvantage for risk stratification and intervention to improve health in Wessex’s young families: The Wessex FRIEND Toolbox (Family Risk IdEntificatioN and Decision)
- Utilising routinely-collected individual and area-level maternal and early life data to quantify childhood obesity risk
- Generating preconception health national monitoring indicators
- Change in modifiable maternal characteristics between successive live pregnancies and childhood overweight/obesity in the second sibling
Studying Lifecourse Obesity PrEdictors (SLOPE) study
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
Module Lead:
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Prof Nisreen Alwan is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Southampton and an Honorary Consultant in Public Health at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. She does research around how to prevent disease and optimise the wellbeing of young families leading to better long-term health and focusing on narrowing health inequalities. Prof Alwan has contributed to the public health response to the pandemic, particularly focusing on the recognition and the quantification of morbidity from COVID19, having initiated the call to Count ‘Long COVID’. She was awarded an MBE for services to Medicine and Public Health during the COVID19 pandemic in the Queen’s New Year Honours 2021. She was also named amongst other inspiring and influential women from around the world in the BBC 100 Women 2020 list. She is now doing research on Long Covid particularly focusing on inequalities in prevention, recognition and care.
Prof Alwan qualified in Medicine and obtained the membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP UK). She then pursued a career in Public Health Medicine by obtaining a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of Nottingham and then joining the Public Health Specialist Training Programme in the Yorkshire and Humber Region. During that time, she secured a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship based at the University of Leeds, obtaining an MSc in Statistical Epidemiology and a PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology as part of that. She is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health (FFPH).
QUALIFICATIONS:
PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology, University of Leeds
MSc in Statistical Epidemiology, University of Leeds (Distinction)
Master of Public Health (MPH), University of Nottingham
MBChB, University of Baghdad, School of Medicine
Membership of the Royal College of Physicians, UK (MRCP)
Fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health, UK (FFPH)
Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP)
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)
Prizes
- BBC 100 Women 2020 (2020)
- MBE (2020)
- National Clinical Excellence Bronze Award (2022)
- NIHR Doctoral Fellowship (2023)