Research Strategy

Current research resources and areas of special expertise

(i) Large population-based cohorts: British Regional Heart Study (Peter Whincup), British 1958 birth cohort (David Strachan), Ten Towns Children's Study (Peter Whincup, Derek Cook) each comprising several thousand subjects followed over more than ten years. These are an essential basis for lifecourse epidemiology.

(ii) Large biological specimen collections (including serum/plasma and DNA): British Regional Heart Study (Peter Whincup), British 1958 birth cohort (David Strachan), Ten Towns Children's Study (Peter Whincup, Derek Cook), Wandsworth Heart & Stroke Study (Derek Cook). With emerging advances in molecular biology, we envisage increasing demand for such resources in genetic epidemiology.

(iii) Ethnically diverse population samples: Wandsworth Heart & Stroke Study (Derek Cook), with new fieldwork on the CHASE study funded for 2004-5 (Peter Whincup, Derek Cook). These are relevant both to genetic epidemiology and to studies of health inequalities.

(iv) Primary care consultation and prescription data (Doctors' Independent Network - DIN): Ten years of collaborative work has enabled the Department to have free access to this collation of electronic patient records from over 100 practices. Longitudinal data are available from the early 1990s and data capture is continuing. The validity of the dataset has been confirmed by comparison with established alternatives such as the GPRD (Derek Cook, Sean Hilton, David Strachan). DIN underpins the department’s interest in primary care epidemiology.

(v) Informatics. In addition to the DIN work, specialised expertise in primary care information systems has been developed through the Doctor's Desk, National electronic Library for Health and other projects (Simon de Lusignan).

(vi) National datasets of "routine data" and others: The department hosts the Lung and Asthma Information Agency (sponsored by British Lung Foundation, National Asthma Campaign and British Thoracic Society) which is concerned with the epidemiological analysis of routine information on respiratory disease (Ross Anderson, David Strachan, Ramyani Gupta). A Register of Volatile Substance Abuse Deaths is funded by the Department of Health and monitors all deaths in the UK associated with volatile substances (Ross Anderson).

(vii) Air pollution epidemiology and time-series analysis: The national databases of mortality and hospital admissions have been exploited extensively for environmental epidemiology, particularly for time-series analysis of health effects of outdoor air pollution (Ross Anderson). This work has an international profile, both in Europe and North America, and both Ross Anderson and David Strachan serve on UK government committees concerned with air pollution and health.

(viii) Systematic reviews: The department also hosts the Cochrane Collaboration Airways Group (Director Paul Jones), which facilitates the systematic review of randomised controlled trials of drugs and other treatments in asthma and chronic lung disease. Other members of the department have carried out major systematic reviews on health effects of passive smoking (Derek Cook, David Strachan) and outdoor air pollution (Ross Anderson, Richard Atkinson, David Strachan), lifecourse epidemiology (Peter Whincup, Derek Cook, Chris Owen), glycaemic control in diabetes (Sally Kerry) and home blood pressure monitoring (Sally Kerry).

(ix) Links with the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, with ongoing research into clinical guidelines and their implementation (Francoise Cluzeau).

(x) Behavioural interventions: Particularly smoking cessation (Michael Ussher) and exercise (Michael Ussher, Tess Harris).

(xi) Primary care research: Particularly in relation to prevention of complications from cardiovascular and renal disease (Sally Kerry, Simon de Lusignan) and adverse outcomes from sexually transmitted infection (Pippa Oakeshott).