Email: portico-services@ucl.ac.uk
Help Desk: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ras/portico/helpdesk
- Honorary Senior Research Fellow
- Applied Health Research
- Institute of Epidemiology & Health
- Faculty of Pop Health Sciences
- Honorary Senior Research Associate
- Behavioural Science and Health
- Institute of Epidemiology & Health
- Faculty of Pop Health Sciences
I lead a research team investigating the drivers of long-run improvements in longevity and, particularly, socioeconomic inequalities in morbidity and mortality trends and projections.
Since 2009, my research at UCL has been supported by Legal and General Assurance Society where I am Principal Scientist (Epidemiology) in the Longevity Science Team. Uniquely within the pensions industry, this is a successful example of an embedded industry/academia collaboration to support independent research which is both scientifically novel and of practical relevance to the industry.
We recently modelled the relative contribution of changes in major population level risk factors versus modern treatments in explaining the {unequal} decline in coronary heart disease mortality between socioeconomic groups.
I am currently the Principal Investigator in a project funded by the UK National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC – North Thames) on Socio-economic inequalities in health expectation and survival with multiple morbidities.
The project aims to study the impact of socioeconomic inequalities on the age of onset of chronic disease, and the number, type and duration of time spent with multiple diseases on the observed gradient in life expectancy. As populations age, we need to move beyond the single-disease framework. Results from this project will not only inform patient-centered disease management and healthcare policy; it will also help calibrate longevity risk models in an era of pension’s freedom and an expected shift in the annuity market to older ages.
For multimorbidity analysis, we are using the UK’s, and the world’s, largest linked electronic health records database, the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) with over 3 million GP patient records linked through time to individual consultations, hospital admissions, medications, diagnostic tests and mortality.
Before joining UCL, I was in a senior civil servant at the Office for National Statistics (Deputy Director, Social and Healthcare Analysis); the Chair of Eurostat’s ‘Partnership in Health’ programme; and a Consultant Advisor to the Department of Health’s health survey programme. I began my career as a health analyst at the Department of Primary Care, Imperial College London after completing my PhD in SOAS (University of London).




My research interest is in healthy ageing and explanations for social, ethnic and geographical inequalities in health expectancies and longevity. I have published on a range of topics – social and ethnic inequalities; disability; NHS resource allocation; and evaluation of models of service delivery in primary care – and remain interested in these.
- Inequalities in health - MBBS students, Imperial college
- Epidemiology - Roehampton University, London
MAR-2009 | Honorary Senior Research Fellow | Applied Heath Research | UCL, United Kingdom |
OCT-2004 – FEB-2009 | Deputy Director | Health and Care Division | Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom |
MAR-1998 – SEP-2004 | Research Director | Survey Methods Centre & Consultant, DH | National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), United Kingdom |
AUG-1988 – MAR-1998 | Senior Research Analyst | General Practice and Public Health | Imperial College, United Kingdom |
1991 | Doctor of Philosophy | School of Oriental and African Studies | |
1980 | Master of Philosophy | Jawaharlal Nehru University | |
1976 | Master of Arts | Jawaharlal Nehru University | |
1974 | Bachelor of Science | Panjab University, Chandigarh |