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Staff Profiles

Dr Andrew Kingston

Senior Lecturer in the Epidemiology of Ageing

  • Telephone: +44(0)191 20 81121
  • Address: Population Health Sciences Institute (PHSI), Faculty of Medical Science
    Newcastle University, Health Innovation Neighbourhood, 
    Rm 107 Biogerontology Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5PL
Background

BACKGROUND

As an experienced researcher specialising in the epidemiology of ageing, I hold a Chartered Statistician status and a PhD in these fields. My expertise is primarily focused on using advanced statistical methodologies to analyse complicated longitudinal datasets. This approach aids in exposing the progression of health outcomes over time, with a particular emphasis on the onset and development of specific diseases, disability, frailty, and the phenomenon of multimorbidity (2+ diseases).

My core technical interest lies in the branch of statistical methods tailored for intricate longitudinal data. These methods are instrumental in identifying and interpreting how health unfolds through time, as well as understanding the influence of a range of factors on these trends. My mathematical expertise is rooted in methodologies designed for the analysis of longitudinal data, both continuous and categorical, and extends to the domain of microsimulation. This expertise is pivotal in advancing our understanding of the ageing process and its impact on health outcomes now and into the future.

VISION

My research vision is to understand:

  1. The specific pathways through which biology, disease, lifestyle factors and sociodemographic characteristics interact across the life-course to shape multimorbidity and health trajectories.
  2. Ways in which age-related functional decline can be compressed to the shortest possible window before death, leading to better quality of life for older people by compressing their period of dependency.

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS, ESTEEM INDICATORS & PRIZES

  1. Chartered Statistician (registration number 115879 / revalidated June 2021)
  2. Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) [registration number: PR318257]
  3. Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society
  4. Fellow of Newcastle University Policy Academy
  5. Member of the ONS Expert Advisory Group for health projections modelling and the development of a Health Index
  6. Visiting Fellow of the Australian National University (2016-2018)
  7. Dhole-Eddlestone Memorial Prize for the strongest paper published in Age and Ageing in 2019 - Kingston, A., Robinson, L., Booth, H., Knapp, M., Jagger, C. and MODEM project, 2018. Projections of multi-morbidity in the older population in England to 2035: estimates from the Population Ageing and Care Simulation (PACSim) model. Age and ageing, 47(3), pp.374-380.
  8. Specialist Collaborator at the Nova Scotia Centre on Aging (Mount Saint Vincent University, Nova Scotia, Halifax)
  9. Invited teacher for the Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR) – University of New South Wales - Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) - 2019
  10. Collaborator with the Ageing and Life course (ALC) Lab, Taiwan: https://alclab.ea.sinica.edu.tw/home

MANAGEMENT

Deputy Director for Education in the Population Health Sciences Institute

Co-director for the Newcastle University Centre for Reseach Excellence in Mobility and Transport

Ageing and Gerosciecne Theme Lead for the Population Health Sciences Institute


  


Research

Research areas:

  1. Understanding pathways to disability, dependency and multimorbidity in older people.
  2. Understanding how disability and multimorbidity is shaped by exposures to risk factors across the life-course and drivers of health inequality.
  3. Developing disability risk prediction methodology.
  4. Using microsimulation to project future prevalence and incidence of health outcomes, particularly multimorbidity (2+ diseases).
  5. Methods of calculating health expectancies.
  6. Causes of the male-female disability survival paradox.

I am an investigator on several research projects, including:

  1. Principal investigator at Newcastle University for the multimillion-pound Healthy Ageing Trailblazer, Homes for Living, offering a variety of in-home solutions to support independent living - in collaboration with EON.
  2. Co-investigator for the Newcastle 85+ Study, which is the first and largest study of its kind examining health outcomes in individuals aged 85 and over.
  3. Co-investigator of the Advanced Care Research Centre: Ageing in Place - exploring factors that enable people to age in the place they consider home.
  4. Co-investigator for the Policy Research Unit on Older People and Frailty - I lead several initiatives that focus on understanding the relationship between factors such as multimorbidity and socioeconomics and their impact on health expectancies.
  5. Co-investgator of North and South: Regional Health Inequalities in England – investigating the deep-rooted and long-term regional health inequalities, specifically the 'north-south health divide' in England.
  6. Co-investigator of Extending Working Lives for People with Musculoskeletal Conditions – working with Keele university to develop an indicator of Healthy Working Life Expectancy.
  7. Collaborator on the AWESSoM study (Ageing Well through Eating, Sleeping, Socialising and Mobility Programme) - working with Auckland University to study early detection of functional deficits using self-reported and sensor-collected data.

Member of the steering committee for the Newcastle University Centre of Research Excellence in Ageing and Inequalities.

I am the Ageing and Geroscience theme lead for Newcastle University’s Population Health Sciences Institute.

I am co-director of the Newcastle University Centre for Research Excellence in Mobility and Transport (Transport, Society and Place theme lead).

Member of the Office for National Statistics Expert Advisory Group in health projections.

I am the UK lead for the TULIPs consortium (Towards Understanding Longitudinal Studies in Older People) – collaborating with a team of experts from Japan, the Netherlands, and New Zealand to combine data sources and study the ageing process using metanalytic techniques, with a focus on cross-national differences.

Google Scholar






Teaching

I serve as Deputy Director for Education in the Population Health Sciences Institute and Degree Programme Director for the Master of Public Health (MPH). In these roles, I provide strategic leadership across our education portfolio, shaping programme design, delivery, and innovation in public health teaching and learning.


I am module leader for Applied Epidemiology and Data Science (MPH8006), co-module leader for Ageing Across the Life Course (MPH8007), and Epidemiology (BMS3023) on the Biomedical Sciences programme.


I have supervised several PhD students to completion and continue to supervise PhD, MSc, MSci, MRes, MPH, MPharm and undergraduate research projects. I also provide ongoing personal tutoring support to a number of students each year.


I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students interested in quantitative and interdisciplinary approaches to ageing, multimorbidity, and population health research.

Publications