Ruth Blackburn

Dr. Ruth Blackburn is a Senior Research Fellow in Public Health Data Science at the Population, Policy & Practice Department, University College London (UCL), based at the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. She specializes in using electronic health records and administrative data for public health research and evaluation.

Her educational background includes:

• PhD in Epidemiology from University College London (2016)
• MSc in Public Health from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2011)
• BSc in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from University of Durham (2007)

Dr. Blackburn's research focuses on using electronic health records and administrative data for public health research, with particular emphasis on child and family health, social determinants of health, and mental health of children and young people. Her work often involves data linkage, especially through the ECHILD (Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data) database, which links health and education data for England. She has expertise in examining health inequalities, particularly for vulnerable populations such as homeless people and women with substance misuse, and has contributed to infectious disease control research including response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Her recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on the intersection of health and education, particularly examining how chronic health conditions affect school attendance and outcomes, and how social determinants influence child health trajectories. Her work often employs innovative data linkage methods to combine health, education, and social care datasets.

Dr. Blackburn has received recognition for her work through research funding including a UKRI Innovation Fellowship at the Institute of Health Informatics, where she was Deputy Leader for the Public Health Data Science Group.

She is actively involved in mentoring and teaching:

• Supervision of 7 PhD students (4 completed)
• MRC DTP placements for 2 students
• MSc student supervision for 6 students
• Teaching Health Data Science, Statistics and Epidemiology to undergraduate medical students and post-graduates

Dr. Blackburn co-leads Children and Young People's Mental Health themes for the NIHR Children and Families Policy Research Unit and the UKRI Population Mental Health Improvement Consortium. She is also Associate Director for the HDR UK Social and Environmental Determinants of Health Driver Programme which aims to link household information on the social and physical environment with health-related administrative and cohort data.