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Biography
Kim Edwards is a Professor of Sport Exercise and Nutrition Education in the School of Medicine, University of Nottingham. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
She is Interim Associate Pro Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Curriculum Leadership, responsible for the development, implementation and delivery of the University's overarching teaching and curriculum development strategy. Kim is also the Chair of the University Quality and Standards Committee, which oversees the application of all University regulations, policies and procedures in respect to academic quality and standards, providing leadership and direction to the committee in line with University strategic objectives.
She served as Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Director Postgraduate Taught Education and Student Experience from 2016-2022, and as the Academic Unit Lead for Postgraduate Taught Education from 2011-2024. She remains closely involved with the two masters courses that she used to be Course Director for (MSc Sports and Exercise Medicine and MSc Applied Sport and Exercise Medicine), teaching on the courses and providing research supervision. She has long been a supporter of the Nottingham Recognition Scheme and has mentored hundreds of staff across multiple Schools to achieve recognition with Advance HE.
She has been an External Examiner at the Universities of Middlesex, Staffordshire, Teesside, UCLAN, UCL, Essex and Aegean Omiros College, Greece, as well as validating and standard setting for the Faculty for Sports Exercise Medicine. Collectively, this gives her a very broad knowledge of university processes, assessment and quality assurance of teaching and learning.
She is the Deputy Editor (Statistics) for the European Spine Journal. She is currently a consultant for the National Joint Registry. She served as a consultant for Public Health England, advised the Finnish government on physical activity funding, and provided evidence to the House of Lords on sport and recreation policy. She is the co-editor and author of Spatial Microsimulation: A Handbook for Users.
She has a strong interest in medical education research as well as investigating the relationships around physical activity, diet and environmental exposures and their association with MSK injuries and chronic disease, such as osteoarthritis and obesity. She has extensive statistical modelling expertise.
Her background whilst highly numerate is not tradition. In brief: maths BSc(Hons); corporate banking career; MMedSci Human Nutrition; spatial epidemiology PhD; then increasingly senior academic roles (University of Leeds; University of Nottingham), teaching and leading research methods, medical statistics, physical activity epidemiology, expedition and wilderness medicine, and sport and exercise nutrition. This holistic background affords both medical understanding and statistical experience and gives her a wide and a diverse set of skills to draw on for research and teaching.
Expertise Summary
I have expert knowledge of research methods, including ethics, study design and medical statistics. I have significant experience of managing large datasets and undertaking advanced statistical analyses, including multi-level modelling, geographically weighted regression, geographic information systems, spatial analyses, k-medoid cluster analyses (unpublished work for MacMillan Cancer) and structural equation modelling; evidenced by my publication record. I have designed and built a spatial microsimulation model which is widely available for researchers/analysts to use. I have contributed to three books on health data spatial analyses and spatial microsimulation modelling. I understand the importance of discretion in handling confidential information, with strong knowledge of the data protection laws and the University data management requirements, and experience in handling patient identifiable data.
Teaching Summary
Kim Edwards is a senior educationalist and epidemiologist, Professor of Sport Exercise and Nutrition Education, in the School of Medicine. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
She is Interim Associate Pro Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Curriculum Leadership, responsible for the development, implementation and delivery of the University's overarching teaching and curriculum development strategy. Kim is also the Chair of the University Quality and Standards Committee, which oversees the application of all University regulations, policies and procedures in respect to academic quality and standards, providing leadership and direction to the committee in line with University strategic objectives.
She served as Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Director Postgraduate Taught Education and Student Experience from 2016-2022, and as the Academic Unit Lead for Postgraduate Taught Education from 2011-2024.
She remains closely involved with the two masters courses that she used to be Course Director for (MSc Sports and Exercise Medicine and MSc Applied Sport and Exercise Medicine), teaching on the courses and providing research supervision. She has long been a supporter of the Nottingham Recognition Scheme and has mentored hundreds of staff across multiple Schools to achieve recognition with Advance HE.
She has been an External Examiner at the Universities of Middlesex, Staffordshire, Teesside, UCLAN, UCL, Essex and Aegean Omiros College, Greece, as well as validating and standard setting for the Faculty for Sports Exercise Medicine. Collectively, this gives her a very broad knowledge of university processes, assessment and quality assurance of teaching and learning.
Kim has over twenty years of experience teaching Research Methods and Statistics. She has been the module convenor for the Research Methods module, Research Project and Dissertation Sports and Exercise Medicine module, and Sport and Exercise Nutrition module all at postgraduate level. She continues to contribute to these modules as well as Physical Activity Epidemiology and Expedition and Wilderness Medicine plus she has taught health care professionals outside of the masters programmes (e.g. FRCS(Orth) Examination revision courses). She also contributes to teaching and assessment for the PGCHE modules and the Nottingham Recognition Scheme for Advance HE recognition.
She takes innovative approach to teaching and learning, making extensive use of e-learning to augment in-person sessions and uses case studies and real-world examples to enhance engagement and bring teaching to life. In addition, she supervises many undergraduates, MSc and PhD research students and provides academic and pastoral support to UG and PG students.
Research Summary
My discipline specific research focuses on physical activity, diet and environmental exposures and their association with chronic disease, such as osteoarthritis, cancer and obesity, from a public… read more
Current Research
My discipline specific research focuses on physical activity, diet and environmental exposures and their association with chronic disease, such as osteoarthritis, cancer and obesity, from a public health and/or spatial epidemiology perspective. For example, spinal cancer patients' quality of life; school environment/childhood obesity; running/knee joint health; exercise adherence; protocols to reduce lower back pain; interaction between obesity, injury and physical activity for knee osteoarthritis.
I develop and test small area estimation techniques, largely for modelling health data (e.g. I have used spatial microsimulation modelling to estimate physical activity behaviour, adult obesity and osteoarthritis). I also have a strong interest in medical education research and have undertaken projects in flipped teaching and peer marking schemes.
Selected Publications:
T Bestwick-Stevenson, L Wyatt, A Alshammari, K Edwards, M Batt, ... (2024). Repeated ankle sprain is associated with an increased likelihood of concurring knee and hip pain. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage 32, S508.
Harrison S, Edwards KL. (2024). Chronic back pain prevalence at small area level in England - the design and validation of a 2-stage static spatial microsimulation model. Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology. 48:100633. doi: 10.1016/j.sste.2023.100633.
Alfahad NR, Geoghegan J, Edwards K, Bhattacharya, Wallace A (2023). Comparison Of Different European And North American Shoulder Scoring Systems. Journal of shoulder and elbow surgery 32(5): e262 10.1016/j.jse.2023.02.071
H Smalley, KL Edwards. (2023). Understanding the burden of chronic back pain: a spatial microsimulation of chronic back pain at small area level across England. European Spine Journal.
KK Petersen, T Kurien, RW Kerslake, T Graven-Nielsen, L Arendt-Nielsen, DP Auer, KL Edwards, BE Scammell (2022). Chronic Postoperative Pain after Total Knee Arthroplasty: The Potential Contributions of Synovitis, Pain Sensitization, and Pain Catastrophizing. European Journal of Pain. 26(9): 1979-1989.
T Bestwick-Stevenson, R Toone, E Neupert, KL Edwards, S Kluzek (2022). Assessment of fatigue and recovery in sport: narrative review. International Journal of Sports Medicine. 43(14): 1151-1162.
Y.Y.W. Yap, K.L. Edwards, H. Soutakbar, G.S. Fernandes, B.E. Scammell (2021) Oxford Knee Score 1 year after TKR for osteoarthritis with reference to a Normative population: what can patients expect? OA and cartilage Open. 3(2)
NA Quraishi, N Paskou, JEJ Koch, G Arealis, BM Boszczyk, KL Edwards (2020). Prospective Analysis of Health Related Quality of Life after Surgery for Spinal Metastases and Systematic Review. European Spine Journal. 29(2):1-7 DOI:10.1007/s00586-020-06396-6.
Ifesmen O, Bestwick-Stevens T, Edwards K (2020). Spatial Microsimulation of Osteoarthritis Prevalence at the Small Area Level in England - Constraint Selection for a 2-Stage Microsimulation Process. The International Journal of Microsimulation. 12(2): 36-50.
Vishnubala D, Marino K, Pratten MK, Pringle A, Griffin SA, Finn GM, Bazira P, Edwards KL (2020). Integrating sport and exercise medicine clinics into the National Health Service: a qualitative study. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine. 6(1):e000888 DOI: 10.1136/bmjsem-2020-000888
Quraishi N, Ahmed M, Arealis G, Boszczyk B, Edwards KL (2018). Does surgical site infection influence neurological outcome and survival in patients undergoing surgery for metastatic spinal cord compression? European Spine Journal. 28): 792-797 doi: 10.1007/s00586-018-5797-4.
Peeters G; Edwards KL; Brown WJ; Barker AL; Arden N; Redmond AC; Conaghan PG; Cicuttini F; Mishra GD (2018) Potential effect modifiers of the association between physical activity patterns and joint symptoms in middle aged women. Arthritis care & research, 70 (7), 1012-1021 DOI: 10.1002/acr.23430
Marino K, Merrick D, Edwards K, Pratten M (2018). Musculoskeletal Radiology teaching at a UK medical school: Do we need to improve? Anatomical Sciences Education
Timmins KE, Leech R, Batt ME, Edwards KL (2017). Running and knee osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The American journal of sports medicine 45 (6), 1447-1457 doi: 10.1177/0363546516657531
Past Research
Modern environments do not necessarily encourage residents to have an active, healthy lifestyle. In fact, the sedentary option is often the easiest choice. Accordingly, my research regarding the obesogenic environment lead me to examine the relationship between obesity and many different aspects of the environment, including access to facilities, urbanisation, social capital, deprivation, and neighbourhood safety, as well as many behavioural aspects, such as physical activity levels, sedentary behaviour, diet in terms of consumption and expenditure.
As part of my PhD I developed SimObesity, a deterministic spatial microsimulation model that can be used to estimate health data, such as obesity prevalence or physical activity levels. Please get in touch if you would like to use a version.