Ewelina Rydzewska

Ewelina Rydzewska is a Lecturer in Health Futures at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and the School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh. She is also an Affiliate at the Institute of Health and Wellbeing, previously working there as a Research Fellow for the Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory. She collaborates with the SEARCH Center at the University of California, Riverside. Her research focuses on population demographics, health needs, and determinants for people with autism and intellectual disabilities, using big data and data linkage methodologies. She intersects public health, epidemiology, developmental and clinical psychology, bridging health/social sciences and quantitative/qualitative research.

Research interests include multidimensional quality of life for autism/ID populations, with a focus on health inequalities, mental health, mortality, life course transitions, self-harm/suicide risk, substance abuse, homelessness, and risk behaviors.

Her work has been supported by grants from the Scottish Government, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and others. She currently supervises PhD student Katie Rutherford on therapeutic alliance in autism and mental health. Her contributions include over 45 publications, emphasizing health disparities and population-level analyses in neurodevelopmental disorders. She is affiliated with the Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory and collaborates internationally.