Rate My Professor Colin McCowan

Professor Colin McCowan serves as Professor in Health Data Science and Head of the Population and Behavioural Science Division in the School of Medicine at the University of St Andrews, a position he has held since January 2019. He is also an Honorary Professor within the Institute of Health & Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow. Previously, from November 2012 to December 2018, he was Professor of Health Informatics at the Robertson Centre for Biostatistics, University of Glasgow. Earlier in his career, which spans over 30 years, McCowan contributed to the Health Informatics Centre in Dundee and played a key role in developing data services, including jointly running the West of Scotland Safe Haven with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

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.