Dr Mohammad Al Sallakh is a researcher at the BREATHE hub for respiratory health data at Swansea University.
He has developed the Wales Asthma Observatory (WAO) as a platform for asthma research and surveillance.
The WAO was developed to explore what is happening to patients with asthma in Wales and to examine this longitudinally in order to support improvements in the quality and equality of asthma care and inform health service planning and clinical research.
How did you initially become interested in your field?
Throughout my PhD study, in which I developed the Wales Asthma Observatory, I had a growing interest in population health data and how it has massively changed the way we understand health and disease, conduct epidemiological studies and evaluate clinical and public health interventions.
What are you hoping to achieve with your research?
I aspire to produce actionable insights that benefit peoples with asthma and respiratory diseases. I am also part of UK-wide ensemble efforts to enable reproducible use of respiratory health data in cutting edge research and innovation.
What are you currently focusing on?
I have been focusing on asthma, other respiratory diseases, and recently COVID-19, which are exemplar conditions in which population health data are invaluable. I have a particular interest in socioeconomic inequalities in asthma. In addition, I have been actively developing tools to facilitate reproducible research in my field.
