Dr Hamish Foster
- Clinical Research Fellow (General Practice & Primary Care)
telephone:
0141 330 8332
email:
Hamish.Foster@glasgow.ac.uk
Biography
I am a General Practitioner and a Clinical Research Fellow based in the General Practice and Primary Care research group (GPPC). I am interested in health and social inequalities, lifestyle/health behaviours, obesity, physical activity, and mixed methods.
Current Research
My current research interest focusses on the socioeconomic influence on combinations of lifestyle/health behaviours and associated adverse health - the topic of my PhD. In 2019 I was awarded a Medical Research Council Clinical Research Training Fellowship entitled 'Understanding interactions between lifestyle and deprivation to support policy and intervention development' (grant number MR/T001585/1).
Background and Training
I graduated from Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry in 2007, completing an intercalated BSc (1st Class Hons) in Neuroscience in 2006. I completed Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 2010 and gained a distinction on the East African Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 2013. I worked in a rural hospital in Uganda on the edge of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest 2013-2014 and completed clinical training in General Practice in 2015.
I joined GPPC as a GP clinical academic researcher in 2015. I frequently work with an inter-disciplinary group investigating health-related traits, risk factors, and a wide range of health outcomes using UK Biobank.
Clinical work
I work as a General Practitioner at Logan and Macdonald Practice, Glasgow.
Research interests
- Health and social inequalities
- Lifestyle/Health behaviours
- Big Data - UK Biobank and HUNT Databank
- Mixed methodology - systematic review (synthesis without meta-analysis - SWiM), quantitative epidemiology (survival models, variable selection algorithms), qualitative methods (stakeholder focus groups and interviews)
- Normalisation Process Theory
Publications
Selected publications
Foster, H. M.E. , Celis-Morales, C. A. , Nicholl, B. I. , Petermann, F., Pell, J. P. , Gill, J. M.R. , O'Donnell, C. A. and Mair, F. S. (2018) The effect of socioeconomic deprivation on the association between an extended measurement of unhealthy lifestyle factors and health outcomes: a prospective analysis of the UK Biobank cohort. Lancet Public Health, 3(12), e576-e585. (doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(18)30200-7) (PMID:30467019)
Foster, H. , Macdonald, S. , Patterson, C. and O'Donnell, C. A. (2019) No such thing as bad publicity? A quantitative content analysis of print media representations of primary care out-of-hours services. BMJ Open, 9(3), e023192. (doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023192) (PMID:30910877) (PMCID:PMC6475237)
Foster, H. , Moffat, K., Burns, N. , Gannon, M., Macdonald, S. and O'Donnell, C. A. (2020) What do we know about demand, use and outcomes in primary care out-of-hours services? A systematic scoping review of international literature. BMJ Open, 10, e033481. (doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-033481) (PMID:31959608)
Foster, H. M.E. , Ho, F. K., Sattar, N. , Welsh, P. , Pell, J. P. , Gill, J. M.R. , Gray, S. R. and Celis-Morales, C. A. (2020) Understanding how much TV is too much: a non-linear analysis of the association between television viewing time and adverse health outcomes. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 95(11), pp. 2429-2441. (doi: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2020.04.035) (PMID:32713607)
Foster, H. M.E. , Polz, P., Mair, F. S. , Gill, J. M.R. and O'Donnell, C. A. (2021) Understanding the influence of socioeconomic status on the association between combinations of lifestyle factors and adverse health outcomes: a systematic review protocol. BMJ Open, 11, e042212. (doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-042212) (PMID:34045211) (PMCID:PMC8162079)
McQueenie, R. et al. (2020) Multimorbidity, polypharmacy, and COVID-19 infection within the UK Biobank cohort. PLoS ONE, 15(8), e0238091. (doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238091) (PMID:32817712) (PMCID:PMC7440632)
All publications
Grants
Grants and Awards listed are those received whilst working with the University of Glasgow.
- Developing a theory of prevention burden
Royal College of General Practitioners
2024 - 2026