Rate My Professor Colin McCowan

His research focuses on leveraging routinely collected health data for epidemiological studies, supporting clinical trials, and advancing research methodologies. Key areas include cancer, healthcare-acquired infections, cardiovascular disease, multimorbidity, and elderly care. McCowan led the capacity building work stream of the Farr Institute and is a Scottish lead for training within Health Data Research UK (HDR UK). He has secured funding as principal investigator for projects such as 'Improving Unscheduled Care for People in their Last Year of Life' from the Chief Scientist Office and multiple Wellcome Trust doctoral training positions. Widely published in epidemiological and data science fields, notable publications include "Behavioural interventions to increase uptake of FIT colorectal screening in Scotland (TEMPO): a nationwide, eight-arm, factorial, randomised controlled trial" (2025, The Lancet), "Abnormal plasma/serum magnesium, copper and zinc concentrations associate with the future development of cardiovascular diseases" (2025, Nutrients), "Addressing methodological challenges in multiple long-term conditions research: a stakeholder workshop using a nominal group technique method" (2025, Journal of Multimorbidity and Comorbidity), and "Analysing disease trajectories of multimorbidity through process mining techniques: a case study" (2025). His work has significantly influenced health data infrastructure and training in Scotland.