Dr Cheng is a statistician for the Research Design Service South Central.

She completed her PhD on Regression modelling of cervical cancer and Chlamydia in 2009 at the University of Southampton. Edith’s primary interests are the application of statistics spatial models in healthcare research. She has extensive experience in spatial regression models, Geographical weighted regression (GWR) and Bayesian regression models to explore the relations between selected diseases and potential risk factors, including socio-economic variables.

Such research can, ultimately, improve public health and assist healthcare planning by promoting disease detection and prevention. Her PhD projects demonstrated the application of geographically weighted Poisson regression (GWPR) and Bayesian spatial models for analysing the relation between cervical cancer disease incidence (Chlamydia) and socio-economic deprivation in England.