Staff Profile

I am a research associate at the Newcastle University Population Health Sciences Institute. I am part of the Health Inequalities Team, conducting research on place-based health inequalities.

A geospatial data scientist by background, I have extensive expertise in the use geographical information systems (GIS) in public health. I am primarily interested in the complex interplay between social, spatial and health inequalities, spatial determinants of health and climate as an emerging facet of inequalities. My main areas of expertise are place-based research in population health, research informed policy and decision-making, and spatial modelling and statistical analysis of built and natural environments.

I have worked on modelling the built and natural environment around individuals in cohort studies, developing measures of environment and performing statistical analysis to uncover the influence of the environment on health. I have also worked on the development of a decision making support tool for stakeholders to decide on optimised air quality sensor placement in the city.

I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) and a member of the Regional Studies Association (RSA) and Society for Social Medicine & Population Health.

I am currently working on two projects:

1. "Ghost Towns" which aims to create a comprehensive overview of the changes in amenities over the last decade in cities, towns and high streets, and study the relationship of such decline on health outcomes.
2. The Impact of Climate related severe weather on health outcomes, which uses medical records in CPRD (Clinical Practice Research Datalink) to examine the associations between recent severe weather events on health within the framework of established regional health inequalities.

Previously, I have worked on the project "Impact of the Environment and Pollution on Cognitive Health" (EPOCH) and I was a Research Associate at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) on the project "Spatial Inequality in the Smart City". I completed my PhD in Architecture and Built Environment (ABE) at Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne in 2021 and a BSc (Hons) in Architectural Engineering and Environmental Design at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, Cairo, Egypt in 2016.

I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) and I have taught on a number of varied modules in both social determinants of health and environmental design. I am currently supervising two Masters of Public Health students, on topics related to climate change health inequalities and spatial access to healthcare.

I have contributed lectures for the Social Determinants of Health module (MPH8004) titled Spatial Determinants of Health: Measuring the Built and Natural Environment for Public Health Research (2024 and 2025), and externally for the Research in Architectural Media Group at AASTMT titled Spatial Analytics in the Real and Unreal (2022). I have several years experience in teaching Architectural Design Studio (2014 - 2020).

• Articles

  • Zied Abozied E, Robinson C, Franklin RS, Court K, Roberts J. A spatial decision support framework for equitable sensor network distribution in the smart city. The Geographical Journal 2025, 191(1), e12605.
  • Wu YT, Kitwiroon N, Beevers S, Barratt B, Brayne C, Cerin E, Franklin R, Houlden V, Woods B, Zied Abozied E, Prina M, Matthews F. The longitudinal associations between ambient air pollution exposure and dementia in the UK: results from the cognitive function and ageing study II and Wales. BMC Public Health 2024, 24, 1233.
  • Zied E, Vialard A. Re-Integrating Informal Settlements into the Greater Cairo Region in Egypt Through the Regional Highway Network. Regional Studies, Regional Science 2020, 7(1), 333-345.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

  • Zied Abozied E, Wu Y, Matthews F. The Association Between Street Network Accessibility and Cognitive Impairment. In: Alzheimer's Association International Conference. 2023, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
  • Zied Abozied E, Vialard A. A Classification of Streets in the Greater Cairo Region: A quantitative approach to classification and urban intervention. In: 13th International Space Syntax Symposium (13SSS). 2022, Bergen, Norway: 13SSS.
  • Zied E, Vialard A, Dalton R. Syntactic Stitching II: Further Developing Urban Interventions in Informal Settlements in Cairo, Egypt. In: 12th International Symposium on Space Syntax. 2019, Beijing, China: Beijing Jiaotong University.
  • Zied E, Vialard A, Dalton R. Exploring Self-Generated Block Consolidation to Accommodate Amenity-Based Functional Interventions. In: 25th International Seminar on Urban Form: Urban Form and Social Context. 2018, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation.
  • Zied E, Vialard A. Syntactic Stitching: Towards A Better Integration of Cairo’s Urban Fabric. In: 11th International Space Syntax Symposium (SSS11). 2017, Lisbon, Portugal: CERIS.

• Online Publications

  • Zied Abozied E, Munford L, Todd A, Davies H, Bambra C. Written Evidence: High Streets and Health: An Uneven Burden of Decline. 2024. Available at: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8245/high-streets-in-towns-and-small-cities/publications/written-evidence/?SearchTerm=zied&DateFrom=&DateTo=&SessionId=.
  • Zied Abozied E. Supporting Equitable Smart Cities in the North of England. Brighton: Regional Studies Association, 2022. Available at: https://www.regionalstudies.org/news/blog-supporting-equitable-smart-cities-in-the-north-of-england/.

• Report

  • Zied Abozied E, Franklin RS, Houlden V, Wu YT, Matthews FE. CFAS Geographic Data Manual - rationale and procedures to generate environmental data for the Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (CFAS) II and Wales. Newcastle upon Tyne: Newcastle University, 2024.