Mark Green is currently Reader in Health Geography at the University of Liverpool. Mark’s research examines the social and spatial drivers of health inequalities, evaluating how new forms of (big) data (e.g., images, text, loyalty card records) can supplement traditional administrative datasets (e.g., electronic health records). They are interested in how we can make better use of existing secondary datasets to support how local and national governments make policy decisions.

Notable recent research includes the evaluation of the drivers of inequalities in lateral flow testing and Covid-19 vaccination using electronic health records, and the development of Access to Healthy Assets and Hazards (AHAH) which is the most comprehensive open data resource for measuring features of healthy environments in Great Britain. Their AHAH work has been used by Local and National Government departments, including Public Health England, for measuring the wider determinants of health.

Their work as part of the ADR UK and ESRC funded ‘Local Data Spaces’ project demonstrated the importance of local-level administrative data and analysis to inform local decision making on managing the Covid-19 pandemic including making new data flows accessible to 17 local authorities and being invited to submit evidence to SAGE on the nature of changing health inequalities.

“To make effective policy decisions, we need to get the right data into the right hands at the right time. Administrative data, especially when linked to external data sources, is invaluable for facilitating this process.

"What excites me about administrative data is that the data is collected throughout all facets of society (e.g., each time we visit our GP, attend school or through the jobs that we do). As such, it paints a rich and vivid picture of people’s lives that we would struggle to see in other forms of data. We can use this data to make better policy decisions and tackle real world issues.”