Stories

Explore our global health stories to learn about how, through our partnerships, we're tackling some of the leading global health challenges to improve health outcomes for everyone, now and in the future.

Researchers at The University of Manchester are developing models and tools that are being used to document and predict how environmental changes are impacting on human health.

The GMHAT tool developed by experts in the NHS has become a viable option for UK and international health professionals and organisations needing to make mental health assessments quickly and easily.

Professor Mahesh Nirmalan has worked with colleagues at the University to increase understanding of who has been affected by conflict in northern Uganda, including those with limb loss, to better target care.

University of Manchester researchers have drafted the first mental health policy for Pakistan, which is being initially implemented in Sindh Province for its population of approximately 50 million people.

Experts in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health are working with the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI) on global health.

A collaboration with Peking University has helped to boost genomic and genetic knowledge and skills in China, and impacted on global healthcare systems.

Manchester is one of three universities working together in the fast-moving field of digital health, thanks to an international collaboration with a focus on translational research.

Two Egyptian universities are collaborating with The University of Manchester to enhance their medical training programmes and equip students with the skills they need to work as a doctor internationally.

A social communication intervention developed from original Manchester-led UK research has been adapted for low-resource settings and non-specialist delivery in two regions in South Asia to help boost support for families with young autistic children.

Rare conditions are thought to affect 1 in 17 people in the UK. There are approximately 7,000 known rare conditions, such as Huntington's disease and cystic fibrosis. Many are genetic, but understanding and treatment of these diseases varies around the world.

When Professor Vaskar Saha saw the impact of childhood leukaemia in India, he asked: who can take on this challenge? Having already helped families across Europe to beat the disease, he knew that this was his calling.

Clinical pharmacy is a growing field within the Chinese healthcare sector. A teaching collaboration between The University of Manchester and China Pharmaceutical University is enabling Chinese students to develop the skills they need to work in clinical pharmacy.

Rwanda has big ambitions to transform health care in Sub-Saharan Africa. Olivier Ndahiriwe, an Equity and Merit Scholar at Manchester, aims to make these ambitions a reality.

Pharmacy lecturer David Allison's service learning workshops see Manchester students bring healthcare education into schools and encourage pupils to consider higher education. David tells us why this has been such a success after winning a social responsibility award for his project.

In the UK there is one audiologist for every 25,000 people. In Malawi, audiology services for the entire country were run by just a few foreign volunteers. That was until four Malawian students travelled to Manchester to train as the country’s first qualified audiologists.

Falls can lead to life-changing injuries, premature care home admittance and are the most common cause of injury-related death for this age group. Dr Emma Stanmore is working with local NHS trusts to deliver falls prevention exercises in the form of a computer game to help older people avoid injury and increase their mobility.

The University of Manchester’s Stephanie Snow created the NHS at 70 project with the aim of collecting NHS stories from patients, staff and families to create a digital archive of the service’s long and illustrious history.

Escaping persecution can be one of the most dangerous, traumatising experiences in a person’s life. During their journey to safety, it can be especially challenging for refugees and asylum seekers to access important services such as dental care.

Research into the effects of air pollution on heart health is growing as more people call for action on climate change around the world. One Manchester researcher has used her expertise in animal physiology to show how pollutants can have the same negative impact on human health as they do on marine life.

Novel genomic technologies could solve some of Africa's most pressing healthcare challenges, including global diseases and diseases of poverty that are rare in more developed countries. This has been the focus of a partnership between the Universities of Manchester and Cape Town in disease genomics, particularly in heart disease.

People of African and Caribbean backgrounds are statistically more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychosis than other ethnic groups in the UK, but the least likely to access psychological care. Professor Dawn Edge is on a mission to change this.

More than half of the 2.6 million stillbirths that occur each year happen in Sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers from The University of Manchester are working with healthcare professionals in the region to help prevent stillbirth and improve care.

On average there is one death by suicide every two hours in the UK. It is the leading cause of death among young people aged 20 to 34 and the highest suicide rates occur in men aged between 40 and 44 years old.

What could be the most effective way of spreading awareness of one of the biggest issues facing the world today? Engaging the public and giving them the tools to pass the message on to more people, according to one Manchester academic.

Permanent hearing loss affects approximately one in a thousand babies in the UK. Audiology researchers from Manchester are taking a unique approach to discover the most effective tests to help these children and their families.

University can feel like a big place for new students but people like Dr Doron Cohen, lecturer and first year lead for BSc Psychology, help to make the big pond feel smaller. His time at Manchester has seen him go from undergraduate to researcher to teacher, and his current work explores mental health in psychology students.

For a quarter of a century, Sri Lanka played host to a civil war which claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people. One man who managed to flee in the early days of the conflict is Dr Senathirajah ‘Raj’ Ariyaratnam, who now uses his experiences to train Sri Lanka’s dentists and address dental health inequalities closer to home.

Our researchers and clinicians dedicate their careers to the prevention and treatment of cancer, and the care of patients. Their individual and collective quests for breakthroughs that will benefit society are the inspiration behind this collection of articles.

For those transitioning, having a voice that matches their gender identity is an important part of feeling comfortable and confident. Dr Sean Pert, Senior Lecturer in SLT, runs regular voice and communication workshops with his students at the LGBT Foundation in Manchester.

The armed conflict in Syria broke out in 2011, causing the largest humanitarian crisis since the second world war. The lives of more than 8 million children have been put in danger, their worlds turned upside down by witnessing destruction, violence and death.

Allergies are as much a part of British summertime as Wimbledon and wet weekends by the seaside, but they are also on the rise with hay fever affecting an estimated one in five people in the UK. Now a team from The University of Manchester is trying to understand what is contributing to the seasonal misery of millions.

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats isn’t something that rolls off the tongue, yet it is set to be the biggest scientific breakthrough of the 21st century. Better known as CRISPR, this technique allows scientists to modify and change the genetic makeup of cells, possessing far-reaching potential to treat genetic disease and enhance human health.

Every two minutes, someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancer. With one in every two people likely to get a cancer diagnosis at some point in our lives, it is a disease that affects us all.

Intracerebral haemorrhage is a life-threatening type of stroke affecting over 10,000 people in the UK each year. We developed a care bundle based on our research which reduced patient deaths by a third. It is now in use at 28 hospitals across the north of England.

We used remotely monitored health data to identify deterioration in heart failure patients and issue real-time alerts to hospital staff, allowing for timely specialist intervention and a reduction in the risk of hospitalisation and death.

Our research has become part of a public health programme in Indonesia, where cardiovascular disease accounts for 1 in 3 deaths. We developed an intervention which achieved a reduction in the number of people at high risk and an estimated 3,750 people had an extended life expectancy as a result of the trial.

Our research into the genetic causes of blindness has revolutionised clinical practice – leading to faster, more precise diagnoses and tailored genetic counselling for thousands of patients worldwide.

We developed a series of world-leading biologic treatment registers to monitor the safety of drugs used to treat conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. The research has been used to influence national treatment guidelines and increase access to effective treatments.

Our research into personalised forms of immunotherapy has undergone rapid commercialisation to deliver life-saving results for patients worldwide.

Research conducted at The University of Manchester into risk factors associated with stillbirths has influenced UK and international health policy, helping to educate parents and save lives.

The UK’s first NHS high-energy proton beam therapy centre opened at The Christie Hospital in 2018. Our research was vital in helping to bring this technology to the UK, enabling more patients to access proton therapy for some of the most difficult-to-treat cancers.

More than 300 million people worldwide suffer from serious fungal infections and around two million die each year. Our research is improving patient survival and quality of life, from diagnosis though to drug development.

Manchester researchers are looking at the health and safety implications of gig working in the UK and China.