Evidence-Based Practice, Epidemiology and Health Care Delivery

This is a broad theme incorporating primary health care, population health, and delivery of health care.  Oxford's Department of Primary Care Health Sciences was rated top in the UK in the most recent Research Assessment Exercise.

Researchers in Oxford, particularly in the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, provide the evidence-base to underpin primary care practice, particularly the prevention and care of cardiovascular disease (heart disease, diabetes and stroke), infection and diseases of childhood. There is strong methodological focus including evidence-based medicine, monitoring, diagnosis and self-monitoring of long-term illness. The Department of Primary Care Health Sciences hosts a UKCRC registered Clinical Trials Unit; the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group; the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine and the Health Experiences Research Group and other clinical and health services oriented research groups.

A strong and distinctive focus of health research in Oxford is studying health at the population level. The Department of Public Health has both a domestic and international focus on population health. This enables identification of the causes of, and risk factors for, disease, which informs strategies to promote health.  Population health research also measures the cost effectiveness and social acceptability of care and services.

Research into health care delivery is becoming increasingly important as costs rise and the population ages. New technology should allow improvements in the quality and safety of patient care at reduced costs. The introduction of such changes, however, needs to be designed and tested in the same way as the introduction of a new drug, providing ample scope for research in the future. The Health Services and Policy Research Group conducts research on Patient Centred Care delivery with a focus on Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs), multi-morbidity and e-Health.

Within the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences several projects are underway to improve patient safety and, in a broader context, the Oxford Telemedicine Institute is redesigning patient pathways to take advantage of better information transfer.

MSc Taught Programmes

Part-time Programmes and short courses

Related links

Supervisors in Evidence-Based Practice, Epidemiology and Health Care Delivery

Brian J Angus

Malaria, HIV and Melioidosis
Proochista Ariana

Colin N Baigent

Clinical trials, Meta-analysis, Epidemiology and Cardiovascular disease
Valerie Beral

Cancer Epidemiology and Women's Health
James Berkley

Global childhood infection & immunity
Angelyn Bethel

Health Evaluative Methodologies
Susan Bull

Amanda Burls

Director of Postgraduate Programmes in Evidence-Based Health Care
Climent Casals-Pascual

A systems approach to malaria
Zhengming Chen

Kadoorie Biobank Study
Robert J Clarke

Cardiovascular Risk and Epidemiology
Rory E Collins

Clinical Epidemiology and the UK Biobank
Derrick Crook

Infectious Disease
Francesca Crowe

Clinical Epidemiology
Sarah C Darby

Cancer Epidemiology
Nick PJ Day

Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit
Klaus Ebmeier

Neurobiology of Ageing and psychological disorders in old age
Mike English

Improving delivery of evidence based care for severely ill children
Andrew Farmer

Much of the research that Professor Farmer has recently led or collaborated on aims to improve the effectiveness of tests and treatments for people with diabetes, for example the use of telehealth to support self-management in diabetes, although recent trials also include evaluation of telehealth support for people with COPD, and use of text messaging to support treatment adherence in hypertension.
Jeremy Farrar

Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Viet Nam
Ray Fitzpatrick

Professor of Public Health and Primary Care and Head of the Department of Public Health, University of Oxford.
Charlie Foster

Peter Friend

Isolated organ perfusion and preservation Clinical trials of novel Immunosuppression

Michael Goldacre

Alastair Gray

Ron Gray

Maternal and child health inequalities I carry out evidence synthesis through systematic reviews and secondary analysis of well established cohort studies such as the Millenium Cohort Study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and analysis of routinely collected maternity statistics. My primary interests are in socially generated health inequalities and the teratogenic effects of alcohol on the fetus.
Ashok Handa

Vascular Surgery and patient safety
Linda Hands

Vascular surgery and telemedicine
Anthony Harnden

My clinical and research interests are in primary care paediatrics, specifically common childhood infection, vaccine preventable infection, the early diagnosis of serious disease and clinical trials in children.

Carl Heneghan

My research projects involve investigating the evidence base for publication bias and drug and device regulation. I also work on a number of projects with the BMJ related to the regulatory and evidence requirements for devices.

Richard Hobbs

My research interests focus on cardiovascular epidemiology and clinical trials, especially relating to vascular and stroke risk, and heart failure. See my full biography at http://www.phc.ox.ac.uk/team/researchers/richard-hobbs
Rury R Holman

Diabetes Trials Unit (DTU)
Tim Holt

My research addresses the practical challenges of delivering evidence based primary health care in the modern NHS environment. I am particularly interested in the potential of routinely collected data to influence practice at the point of care, through innovative tools including software interventions.
Crispin Jenkinson

Jane Kaye

Tim Key

Cancer Epidemiology Unit
Marian Knight

Jennifer J Kurinczuk

National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit; maternal and child health research
Dominic Kwiatkowski

Genomics and Global Health
Martin J Landray

Clinical Trial Service Unit
Daniel Lasserson

My research looks at ways to reduce cardiovascular events in general practice. This is important because stroke and heart disease are the commonest causes of death and chronic disease burden. My research projects are in two major areas – stroke prevention and chronic kidney disease.

Niklas Lindegardh

Clinical Pharmacology Laboratory MORU
Cecilia Lindgren

The genetics of obesity
Louise Locock

Interested in projects using qualitative research methods to understand health and illness experiences, and the use of these experiences to develop more patient-centred policy and practice, including service improvement and commissioning decisions. Current D Phils I am supervising focus on patient-centred care, use of personal health narratives for peer support and understanding healthy lifestyle choices.

Sue Mallett

My research is to design and analyse diagnostic and prognostic studies, including ongoing clinical trials and methodological work.

Kevin Marsh

KEMRI Wellcome Collaborative Research programme
Peter McCulloch

Safety and quality in the delivery of surgical services; Methodology for the evaluation of surgical and interventional techniques and technology; Minimally invasive surgery for gastro-oesophageal cancer
Sharon Mickan

Deputy Director MSc Evidence-Based Health Care

Paul Newton

Infectious Disease and Nutrition in Laos
Francois H Nosten

Shoklo Malaria research Unit
Michael Parker

Rafael Perera

I am a University Lecturer in Medical Statistics, and the Department's Head of Statistics. My general interests include: monitoring in primary care, meta-analysis methods, methodology for studying infectious diseases in children, and assessing complex interventions.
Richard Peto

Clinical Trial Service Unit
Fran Platt

Glycosphingolipids in health and disease.
Emma Plugge

Maria A Quigley

National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit; maternal and child health research
Mike Rayner

Sara Ryan

My research interests are around disability (particularly learning disability and autism), qualitative research and health experiences. I'm also interested in exploring ways of including people who are 'seldom heard' in research.
Alison Shaw

Ethnicity and social research in health
Mark Sheehan

Bioethics
Sasha Shepperd

Judit Simon

Bob W Snow

Malaria Public Health & Epidemiology Group
Devi Sridhar

Richard Stevens

My current research interests include monitoring chronic diseases, especially diabetes and hypertension, and clinical prediction rules, especially risk scores. My publications, listed on my webpage at the department of primary care health sciences, give the best overview of my research.

Matthew Thompson

My interests focus on three main areas: childhood illness, diagnostic tests, and infectious diseases. Methods I have used include evidence syntheses, cohort studies, diagnostic accuracy studies, qualitative studies and trials of interventions. I have had great success with Masters and GP academic fellows in the past in terms of publication output and promoting their careers.

Ruth Travis

Clinical Epidemiology
Jose M Valderas

Main potential areas of interest at present are clinical applications of Patient Reported Outcome and Experiences Measures (PROMs and PREMs), the evaluation of quality and safety improvement interventions.

Jose Villar

INTERGROWTH-21st Project Fetal and neonatal growth
Alison Ward

Suzanne Watt

Improving bone marrow transplants- through better engraftment / Stem/progenitor cell expansion and reprogramming / Revascularising tissues for tissue repair
Premila Webster

Urbanisation and chronic disease and Global Health
Nicholas J White

Tropical Medicine, Infectious Disease and Drug Discovery
Jane Wolstenholme

Sarah Wordsworth

Winnie Yip

Sue Ziebland

Sue is a medical sociologist with particular interest in how people use the internet in relation to their health. While specialising in qualitative research she also has an interest in mixed methods studies
Krina Zondervan

Genetic and environmental background of endometriosis and related conditions

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Evidence-Based Practice, Epidemiology and Health Care Delivery
Design of patient pathways and clinical support systems
Evidence-based health care, clinical trials methodology and epidemiology
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