School of Medicine
A group of people sitting at a table in a meeting

People in Lifespan and Population Health

Back to Unit homepage

Image of Laila J Tata

Laila J Tata

Professor of Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences

Contact

Biography

Laila J Tata obtained her BSc in Physiology at McGill University in Canada, before completing her MSc in Epidemiology at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and her PhD in Epidemiology at University of Nottingham.

Expertise Summary

Epidemiology and statistics, pregnancy, perinatal epidemiology, maternal-child health interactions, consequences of chronic disease, acute conditions and health behaviours (particularly mental health, respiratory, gastroenterology conditions in pregnancy), novel methods in drug safety, health inequalities, patient experience and health care services in lung cancer (National audits)

See up to date publications and profile at orchid 0000-0002-6404-8658 or Google scholar 'Laila J Tata'

Teaching Summary

Professor Tata teaches methods in epidemiology and statistics for the Master's in Public Health, MPH Global Health and MPH Health Research courses. She is module convenor for Critical Thinking Skills… read more

Research Summary

Professor Tata's main research interest is in the epidemiology of pregnancy and the perinatal period, and the relationships between maternal and child health. Her research focuses on adverse drug… read more

Selected Publications

Professor Tata teaches methods in epidemiology and statistics for the Master's in Public Health, MPH Global Health and MPH Health Research courses. She is module convenor for Critical Thinking Skills on the BMedSci course for medical students, which teaches how to critically appraise published medical literature. She has previously taught basic and advanced epidemiology and statistics for the MSc Applied Epidemiology, MSc Sports Medicine, MSc Oncology, MMedSci Assisted Reproduction Technology and international short courses.

She supervises MPH dissertations, BMedSci (medical degree student) projects and PhD students.

Teaching qualified as Fellow of Advance HE (https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/)

Current Research

Professor Tata's main research interest is in the epidemiology of pregnancy and the perinatal period, and the relationships between maternal and child health. Her research focuses on adverse drug effects and consequences of illness using routinely collected health data linked across multiple sources to create large population-based study cohorts (e.g. over 300,000 mother-child pairs). She has extensive expertise in using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD, previously GPRD), The Health Improvement Network (THIN) database, Hospital Episode Statistics (HES and Maternity HES), and other disease registry data. Her international work collaborations include Sweden, USA, China and India.

Her studies in perinatal epidemiology are mainly in respiratory, gastroenterology and mental health. They include:

  • Fertility/infertility, pregnancy and birth complications for women with asthma, coeliac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, hyperemesis gravidarum, depression and anxiety, anaemia, acute stroke and blood clots (venous thromboembolism - VTE, DVT, PE)
  • Potential impacts on children born to women with acute/chronic conditions in pregnancy, such as prematurity, congenital anomalies (birth defects), and later life health such as infections and survival. Studies of drug safety in pregnancy compare risks attributable to drug treatments with underlying disease risk (e.g. antidepressants and depression, steroids and asthma)
  • Maternal and household risk factors for children's health and later life acute and chronic illnesses (e.g. childhood injury, coeliac disease, anaemia).

Other work includes the effects of tobacco use and smoking cessation medications, healthcare service use and patient experience in cancer epidemiology.

Her research has been funded by the ESRC, Wellcome Trust, NIHR, and various national and overseas charities.

Other roles

Memberships: International Epidemiology Association (IEA); Society for Social Medicine (SSM); The John Snow Society

CPRD Expert Review Committee for UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency https://cprd.com/review-committees

Mental Health Research UK Scientific Committee https://www.mentalhealthresearchuk.org.uk/scientificcommittee

Statistical Editor for Thorax International Journal of Respiratory Medicine (2008-2011)

Principal data analyst for annual National Lung Cancer Audit Reports (2009-2014) The Health and Social Care Information Centre, United Kingdom National Health Service (http://www.hscic.gov.uk/lung)

@ University of Nottingham

Lead for University of Nottingham Parental Staff Network

Parental leave and childcare support advocacy for Gender Equality Nottingham and Athena SWAN

Impact Coordinator for REF2021 Unit of Assessment 2 (Research Excellence Framework)

Management Group of Data Modeling & Uncertainty research priority area

Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Advisory Group

Languages: fluent English, basic Italian, basic French

School of Medicine

University of Nottingham
Medical School
Nottingham, NG7 2UH

Contacts: Call 0115 823 0031 ext.30031 or please see our 'contact us' page for further details