Contact

• workApplied Health Research Building
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• Sarah.Walker2@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

Sarah is a Research Fellow (Statistician) at the University of Nottingham. She was awarded her PhD, entitled Quantification of the risk of breast, uterine and cervical cancers in symptomatic women in primary care by the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (University of Exeter) in 2017. She completed an MSc in Statistics with Applications in Medicine at the University of Southampton in 2003 and a BSc in Mathematics (2.1) at the University of Sheffield in 2002.

Expertise Summary

Sarah has worked across a diverse range of conditions, including cancer, mental health, and dementia. Having experience in a wide variety of analysis methods, Sarah is readily able to apply transferable skills to new projects. Sarah is currently using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD Aurum) and Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), but is keen to diversify into analysing other routine data sources.

Research Summary

Sarah is currently working on a Polypharmacy project, using CPRD GOLD to explore incidences when patients are prescribed more than one other drug alongside an antidepressant.

Recent Publications

• MARSHALL J, PAPAVASILIOU E, FOX C, HAWKES M, IRVINE A, MONIZ-COOK E, PICK A, POLLEY MJ, REEVE J, ROBINSON L, ROOK G, SADLER E, WOLVERSON E, WALKER S and CROSS JL, 2024. Social prescribing for people living with dementia (PLWD) and their carers: what works, for whom, under what circumstances and why - protocol for a complex intervention systematic review: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38589260/ BMJ Open.

• View all publications

Past Research

Sarah has experience in working on clinical trials, including an individual patient data meta-analysis, and in analysing routinely collected data such as primary care records from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) GOLD and CPRD Aurum and secondary care data from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). She has worked across a number of research areas including mental health, cancer, pain, heart failure, long COVID and dementia.

Future Research

In the future, Sarah would like to extend her previous work on working with the Patient and Public Involvement Groups to identify research areas of interest to those with lived experience In particular, Sarah would be interested in working in the areas of neurodiversity, inequality, deprivation and the intersection between physical and mental health, including with regards to chronic health issues such as pain and fatigue as seen in Long COVID, fibromyalgia or similar conditions.

• MARSHALL J, PAPAVASILIOU E, FOX C, HAWKES M, IRVINE A, MONIZ-COOK E, PICK A, POLLEY MJ, REEVE J, ROBINSON L, ROOK G, SADLER E, WOLVERSON E, WALKER S and CROSS JL, 2024. Social prescribing for people living with dementia (PLWD) and their carers: what works, for whom, under what circumstances and why - protocol for a complex intervention systematic review: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38589260/ BMJ Open.