Personal profile
Biography
Colin McCowan was appointed as Professor in Health Data Science from January 2019 at the University of St Andrews and is an Honorary Professor within the Institute of Health & Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow.
Colin was at the University of Glasgow between November 2012 and December 2018, most recently as Professor of Health Informatics in the Robertson Centre for Biostatistics. He has research interests in the use of existing routine data within epidemiological studies and in the support of clinical trials and other research methods. His work spans a number of clinical conditions including cancer, healthcare acquired infections, cardiovascular disease, multimorbidity and care of the elderly. He has been involved in developing services to provision routinely collected clinical data for research both at the Robertson Centre, jointly running the West of Scotland Safe Haven with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and before that at the Health Informatics Centre in Dundee.
He led the capacity building work stream of the Farr Institute, is one of the Scottish leads for training within HDR UK and has published widely in the epidemiological and data science literature.
Research interests
Health data science, clinical epidemiology, development and evaluation of healthcare interventions including trials, use of routinely collected data, data infrastructure
Profile Keywords
Heath Data Science, Health Informatics, Clinical epidemiology, Routinely collected health data
External positions
Honorary Professor at the Institute of Health & Wellbeing, University of Glasgow
1 Jan 2019 → …
Keywords
- RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
- RM Therapeutics. Pharmacology
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
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SDG 9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Urgent need for system reform in future care planning, access to palliative care and care coordination
Mills, S. E. E., Alexander, R., Bowden, J., Loynd, M. & McCowan, C., 26 May 2026, (E-pub ahead of print) In: BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care. Early, p. 1-3 3 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial › peer-review
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Abnormal plasma/serum magnesium, copper and zinc concentrations associate with the future development of cardiovascular diseases
Lin, B., Alexander, R., Fritzen, R., Mills, S., Stewart, A. J. & McCowan, C., 25 Apr 2025, In: Nutrients. 17, 9, p. 1-14 14 p., 1447.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Addressing methodological challenges in multiple long-term conditions research: a stakeholder workshop using a nominal group technique method
Dambha-Miller, H., Simpson, G., Smith, L., Finney, J., Zghebi, S. S., Hughes, S. E., Keevil, V. L., Yu, G., MacRae, C., Khunti, K., McCowan, C. & NIHR MLTC Cross-NIHR Collaboration Methodologies workstream, 2025, In: Journal of Multimorbidity and Comorbidity. 15, p. 1-9 9 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Analysing disease trajectories of multimorbidity through process mining techniques: a case study
Petrov, D., Nguyen, T., Manataki, A. & McCowan, C., 28 Mar 2025, Process mining workshops: ICPM 2024 international workshops, Lyngby, Denmark, October 14–18, 2024, revised selected papers. Delgado, A. & Slaats, T. (eds.). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland AG, p. 460-472 13 p. (Lecture notes in business information processing; vol. 533).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution
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Behavioural interventions to increase uptake of FIT colorectal screening in Scotland (TEMPO): a nationwide, eight-arm, factorial, randomised controlled trial
Robb, K. A., Young, B., Murphy, M. K., Duklas, P., McConnachie, A., Hollands, G. J., McCowan, C., Macdonald, S., O'Carroll, R. E., O'Connor, R. C. & Steele, R. J. C., 29 Mar 2025, In: The Lancet. 405, 10484, p. 1081-1092 12 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile
Datasets
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EAVE-II / EAVE-II-data-dictionary (dataset)
Agrawal, U. (Creator), McCowan, C. (Creator), Azcoaga-Lorenzo, A. (Creator) & Fagbamigbe, A. (Creator), GitHub, 20 Jul 2021
https://github.com/EAVE-II/EAVE-II-data-dictionary
Dataset
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COVID-19 hospital admissions and deaths after BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccinations in 2·57 million people in Scotland (EAVE II): a prospective cohort study (code)
Agrawal, U. (Creator), McCowan, C. (Creator), Azcoaga-Lorenzo, A. (Creator) & Fagbamigbe, A. (Creator), GitHub, 2021
https://github.com/EAVE-II/Covid-vaccine-failures
Dataset: Software
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Severe COVID-19 outcomes post full vaccination of primary 1 schedule and boosters (code)
Agrawal, U. (Creator), McCowan, C. (Creator), Azcoaga-Lorenzo, A. (Creator) & Fagbamigbe, A. (Creator), GitHub, 2022
https://github.com/EAVE-II/Covid-breakthrough-post-first-booster
Dataset: Software
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Accelerated waning of the humoral response to COVID-19 vaccines in obesity (code)
McCowan, C. (Creator), GitHub, 2023
https://github.com/EAVE-II/covid-obesity-humoral-response
Dataset: Software
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Improving Unscheduled Care for People in their Last Year of Life - Medicine In-Kind Contribution
McCowan, C. (PI), Mills, S. (CoI) & Donnelly, P. (CoI)
1/09/24 → 31/08/29
Project: Standard
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Wellcome DTP - Dr Nina Mackenzie: Wellcome DTP - Dr Nina Mackenzie
McCowan, C. (PI)
1/08/24 → 31/07/27
Project: Studentship
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Wellcome DTP - Dr Katherine Hill: Wellcome DTP - Dr Katherine Hill
McCowan, C. (PI)
2/08/23 → 31/07/27
Project: Standard
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Wellcome DTP - Dr Sarah Bowers: Wellcome DTP - Dr Sarah Bowers
McCowan, C. (PI)
1/11/22 → 31/10/25
Project: Standard
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