Kayleigh Mason

Biography

Kayleigh attended The University of Manchester for her undergraduate degree in BSc (Hons) Pharmacology with Industrial Experience and graduated in 2010.

Kayleigh completed her PhD titled “Central and Peripheral Mechanisms of Pain in Clinical Knee Osteoarthritis” with the Centre for Epidemiology Versus Arthritis at The University of Manchester in 2014. The training she received in epidemiology during her PhD helped her to decide to pursue a career within this field.

Kayleigh worked as a Research Associate at The University of Manchester, developing her programming skills and knowledge of pharmacoepidemiology and applied statistics using complex longitudinal data from a prospective cohort of individuals with moderate-severe psoriasis attending secondary care dermatology clinics in the UK and ROI. Her research investigated the safety, utilisation, and effectiveness of therapies prescribed for the treatment of moderate-severe psoriasis. My role included providing methodological support for researchers using the BADBIR dataset.

Kayleigh joined Keele in 2020 and currently works as a Senior Research Fellow in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She has experience in the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of electronic health records (EHRs) from UK primary care. Her work focuses on understanding health inequalities, disease management, outcomes, and prognosis through large-scale analyses of healthcare data. Kayleigh has established herself as a leader in EHR research, contributing to >40 publications and holding key roles in national networks and research initiatives.

She currently leads the Keele Health and Care Data Research (HCDR) Network and serves on the School of Medicine School Management Team.

Research and scholarship

Kayleigh is an applied quantitative researcher with expertise in EHR-based studies, particularly in the areas of health inequality, pharmacoepidemiology, and prognosis research. Her studies focus on long-term conditions, including musculoskeletal pain, dementia, and psoriasis, and are marked by strong methodological rigour in epidemiology and biostatistics. 

Kayleigh has published >40 peer-reviewed articles - 10 as lead analyst - and her work is open access. Kayleigh’s research has directly influenced clinical guidelines and patient decision aids, with contributions planned for Keele’s REF2029 submission. She ranks among the top 50 psoriasis researchers in the UK and is a recognised figure in musculoskeletal pain epidemiology.

Kayleigh is a strong advocate of involving Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) in EHR research, including developing infographics with children and older ages attending PPI meetings, as well as gaining their insights on how to present findings in a lay and non-scientific format. Kayleigh is keen to further develop her skills in clearly explaining EHR research, complex study designs and analyses to PPI groups.

Editorial work

Kayleigh is statistical reviewer for the journals Rheumatology and Rheumatology Advances in Practice, providing peer reviews and expertise in quantitative methods to the journals.

Teaching

Kayleigh actively contributes to teaching in statistics and epidemiology. She co-delivered teaching sessions titled “Descriptive studies and measures of disease frequency” and “Cohort Studies” for a taught postgraduate MMedSci module. Kayleigh currently facilitates and assesses components of the undergraduate Life Sciences module ‘Research and Analytical Skills’.

Kayleigh is also involved in postgraduate training, facilitating the Summer School on Prognosis Research. Her commitment to education extends to developing open-access training materials and internal seminars on EHR research.

• 2022-present: Prognosis Research in Healthcare: Concepts, Methods & Impact Summer School
• 2021-present: L&T - SLS - LSC20056 Research and Analytical Skills
• 2021-2023: MMedSci CLM-40003 Statistics and Epidemiology

Supervision

Kayleigh is currently lead supervisor for 1x PhD student and 2x MPH students, and successfully co-supervised 2x PhD students (both with minor corrections) and 1x MClinRes (merit) to completion.

Kayleigh has mentored undergraduate and high school students through funded placements, two of whom have received awards for their work.

• 2x NIHR summer internships – 1x student awarded 2023 NIHR SPCR George Lewith Prize for Best Essay,
• 1x Nuffield Foundation summer placement, and
• 1x ASPIRE summer placement - awarded Best Presentation at the ASPIRE Showcase in 2020.

Kayleigh is co-supervising a postgraduate student to undertake HDR UK’s Health Data Science Black Internship Programme for 8 weeks in summer 2025.

Kayleigh mentors early-career researchers, supports internal doctoral progression reviews (PR1), and serves as a methods examiner for internal mock PhD viva.

Collaborations and grants awards

Kayleigh has contributed to over £1 million in research income, including leading a multi-disciplinary team as Principal Investigator for the CLIMB study funded by the NIHR School for Primary Care Research (SPCR). She led the quantitative work package development for the NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) funded programme BADGER (keele.ac.uk/badger) and is lead analyst for those work packages. Kayleigh has led analyses on projects funded by NIHR (nihr.ac.uk/cam-pain), FOREUM (foreum.org/snipe), and the Nuffield Foundation (keele.ac.uk/mskcom).

Kayleigh co-developed successful funding bids for PhD studentships and led an internal funding application to access the CPRD Ethnicity Algorithm. Her work involves collaboration with GP researchers and qualitative research teams in mixed methods studies, as well as other epidemiologists and statisticians within our Biostatistics team. Translation of methods and sharing of knowledge through collaborations including with groups from Lund University (Sweden), University of Birmingham, and Oxford University; across age groups from children and adolescents to the older aged; and across physical (such as musculoskeletal), and mental health and dementia also highlight the wide scope and applicability of her research.

Kayleigh’s leadership of the Keele HCDR Network supports collaborative, multidisciplinary research development across the Faculty with plans to advance her own and others’ expertise in quantitative methods, particularly in EHR research, by enhancing visibility of the Keele HCDR Network and further developing Keele's profile in this area that makes a substantial contribution to the REF2029 submission. 

Kayleigh is keen to expand her national and international collaborations as part of multidisciplinary teams, mentor early-career researchers, and enhance PPI to drive healthcare innovations and improve patient outcomes.