Peter T Donnan

Biography

Peter Donnan is Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Medical School Division of Population Health Sciences within the Medical Research Institute, University of Dundee. He has 25 years’ experience in the design and analysis of Health Services and Population Research observational studies as well as randomised controlled trials of interventions such as drugs (steroids in Bell’s Palsy,NEJM, 2007) as well as public health interventions (screening for breast cancer, Lancet, 1990; weight loss program in male football fans, FFIT, Lancet, 2014). He leads the Dundee Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit (DEBU) and co-leads the Tayside Clinical Trials Unit (TCTU) which has UKCRC registration and has over 25 active trials. He has also carried out extensive population record-linkage research on drug safety, adherence and management of long term conditions using Tayside’s unique prescribing population databases and is the author of over 160 publications (h-index 35, m-index 1.30), as well as an investigator on research projects to a total of over £28 million. He has developed a number of prognostic algorithms, most notably predicting Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) in people with type 2 diabetes (Diabetes Care, 2006), and Chief Scientist Office funded algorithm to predict risk of emergency admissions in primary care (PEONY) with a view to developing cost-effective interventions for long term conditionsnow utilised in a number of health boards (Archives Internal Medicine, 2008). An NIHR HTA-funded study has developed aids to clinical decision making with abnormal liver function tests in primary care. In 2004, Prof. Donnan was invited to become a member of the New Drugs Committee of the Scottish Medicines Consortium which seeks to advise Area and Drug Therapeutics Committees across Scotland regarding the cost-effectiveness of new drugs.

Research Interest

Epidemiology and Management of Long Term Conditions This is a major area of research and coincides with a main concern of Population Health Sciences and recent International and UK health policy. I lead a team of four research fellows, all of whom are also supervised by me for their PhD degrees. In particular, I have an international reputation in the area of development and validation of clinical predictions aids, having published in Diabetes Care the first population-derived algorithm to predict CHD in people with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes UK and Pfizerhave extended funding to develop a similar algorithm for stroke. I have also developed an algorithm to predict emergency hospital admissions in people aged over 40 years which is again unique. This was published in Archives of Internal Medicine and CSO provided further funding to extend the model with keen interest from the Scottish Executive. NHS Tayside and Grampian have now adopted this algorithm in their programme to manage long term conditions. This has been a continuous theme throughout my career having developed a prediction tool for adverse outcomes in Hodgkin’s disease from my MSc thesis, which continues to be used today. All of these studies have relied on my advanced skills in epidemiological analysis of observational data.