Training & Education

NHG-NTU/LKCMedicine Research Seminar - Population Health

15 August 2014

Population Health is often defined as the health outcomes of a group of individuals and includes the distribution of the health outcomes within the group of individuals. The groups are commonly referred to large population such as the whole nation or ethnic community. In this seminar on “Population Health”, six speakers – three from National Healthcare Group (NHG) and three from Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine).

The three speakers from NHG were Ms Tan Woan Shin (Principal Research Analyst, Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR), NHG), Dr Mythily Subramaniam (Director of Research, Institute of Mental Health (IMH)), and Dr Sun Yan (Medical Informatics and Biostatistics Specialist, Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR), NHG).

Ms Tan presented on her study on understanding if there are health outcome differences between participants and non-participants of the Medisave Chronic Disease Management Programme (CDMP). Dr Mythily shared on the population-based epidemiological study conducted by the IMH titled “Well-being of the Singapore Elderly Survey”. This study was conducted to establish the prevalence of dementia and depression among the elderly population (aged 60 years and above) in Singapore. The third speaker from NHG was Dr Sun Yan and she shared on how the development of a risk stratification tool can be utilised to improve cost effectiveness when screening for diabetic retinopathy among type 2 diabetic patients.

The three speakers from LKCMedicine are A/Prof Josip Car (Associate Professor of Health Services and Outcomes Research, Director, Health Services & Outcomes Research Programme, LKCMedicine, NTU), Prof Bernhard Boehm (Professor of Metabolic Medicine, Director, Metabolic Disease Research Programme, LKCMedicine, NTU), and Prof Walter Wahli (Professor of Metabolic Disease, LKCMedicine, NTU).

A/Prof Car gave his presentation titled “Major Trends in Changes to Healthcare Delivery” where he pointed out the challenges faced and  how innovation to the healthcare system are important and necessary to improve healthcare delivery to the population. Prof Boehm shared on how changes from traditional reactive approaches to P4 Medicine (Personalised; Predictive; Preventive; Participatory medicine) can result in reduce complication and improved positive health outcomes. The last speaker for the evening was Prof Wahli where he gave an interesting presentation on nutrition and how it can possibly affect gene activity. He also shared insights on nutrigenetics and its role in the prevention or treatment of certain diseases.