Multimorbidity
How heart failure, COPD, cancer and other long-term conditions occur together, in what order, and what that means for patients.
Dr Benjamin Atta Owusu
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
I am a health data scientist and epidemiologist at the Exeter Collaboration for Academic Primary Care, University of Exeter. I study people living with heart failure and COPD, using routinely collected linked health data to understand how these conditions develop together and how outcomes differ between patient groups. With clinicians, patients and carers, I build interpretable machine-learning models, including one that predicts falls in heart failure.
Research interests
More about my researchCardiovascular and respiratory epidemiology
Incidence, timing of diagnosis and outcomes of heart failure and COPD in national linked primary care records.
Interpretable machine learning
Prediction models that are calibrated, checked across patient groups, and explained in ways clinicians and patients helped design.
Digital health
Using routinely collected records for clinical decision support and for digital twins of patient care.
Selected projects
All projectsHeart failure and COPD
How often COPD is recorded before heart failure, how long the gap is between the two diagnoses, and which factors are associated with a longer interval.
Falls in heart failure
Interpretable machine-learning models that predict falls in people with heart failure, with risk that updates as the record changes. Healthcare professionals, patients and carers shaped how risk and uncertainty are shown. Funded by an EPSRC LEAP fellowship.
Respiratory infections in heart failure and COPD
Infection episodes in primary care, infection-related hospital admissions and antibiotic prescribing in people with heart failure, COPD or both, compared with a matched cohort from the general population.
Recent research outputs
All research outputs-
2025
Trend and association between particulate matters and meteorological factors: a prospect for prediction of PM2.5 in Southern Thailand
Polish Journal of Environmental Studies, 34(5)
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2025
Spatiotemporal patterns of leprosy in Southern Thailand: identifying high-burden districts over 25 years
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, 55:100766
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2024
Spatial and temporal patterns of land surface temperature in Greenland from 2000-2019
Mausam, 75(2):543-550