Fellowship report: from Dokus Eylul University, Turkey to St George's University of London

We worked on developing skills in CHD epidemiology and modeling, developing the Turkish CHD IMPACT model for future projection, developing scenarios for policy analyses, carrying out probabilistic sensitivity analyses with my staff in London. Especially, working on probabilistic sensitivity analyses was very beneficial and exciting. I could not do it by myself.  Modeling was explained very clearly and practicing it with Julia was very informative for me.

We worked on the potential reductions in coronary heart disease mortality from the base year, 1995, were calculated for two contrasting scenarios: (a) if recent risk factor trends simply continued to 2008 and (b) if further the reductions in risk factors were achieved, as  any associations’ targets for 2025.The possible decline in the number of deaths between 2008 -2025 according to the prevention from risk factors (eg. smoking, cholesterol, blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, fruit-vegetable consumption) will be calculated by using the model. While carrying out this aim, the effect of changes in uptake rates in AMI treatments (PTCS, Thrombolysis) and primary prevention treatments (antihypertensive and and statins)  was taken into consideration.

We are planning to prepare an abstract for the next RESCAPMED Symposium. And also, we will write up the data and submit it for publication. Experience in a new university and  in a new country/city was very exciting. I want to improve my skills on epidemiology and modeling in the next steps of this work. This programme changed my viewpoint about working and living in abroad. Learning new techniques from Julia was very useful and beneficial for me.