Paediatric Epidemiology Group

Research within the Paediatric Epidemiology Group incorporates both investigations of the molecular epidemiology and environmental aetiology of chronic diseases as well as a range of health services research. The patterns and causes of the most common paediatric and adolescent chronic conditions, such as cancer, diabetes and glomerular disease, are areas of study, as is the delivery of care to these children and young people. In addition, the group is involved in research into the delivery of intensive care to critically ill children by the NHS, with a specific interest in those with traumatic brain injuries.

One key resource which underpins the programme of research are high quality registers of disease which represent the population and contain information on children from Yorkshire diagnosed over the last two decades. The registers are described in detail later, but overall their establishment and the ongoing collection of data represents a successful model for both epidemiological and health services research.

The group implement a variety of methodological approaches including case control studies and descriptive and molecular epidemiology. The topics cover investigations of demographic profiles and geographic distributions of specific disease groups, prenatal and neonatal risk factors, infectious exposures and epidemiological methodologies.

The group have the technical knowledge and experience of clinical data that facilitates establishing secure and confidential databases for use in both clinical and research settings.

To find out more information, visit www.leeds.ac.uk/medicine/peg/