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Dr Pia Hardelid
Associate Professor
Population, Policy & Practice Dept
UCL GOS Institute of Child Health
- Joined UCL
- 19th Dec 2011
Research summary
I am one of the principal investigators in the Child Health Informatics Group: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/child-health/research/population-policy-and-practice-research-and-teaching-department/cenb-clinical-3 and the lead for administrative data analyses for the NIHR Children's Policy Research Unit (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/children-policy-research).
My research focuses on using routinely collected health data (including birth and death certificates, hospital admission records and general practice databases) for child health research. I have used these data to estimate the effectiveness of influenza vaccines, determine the role of chronic conditions in childhood mortality, and carry out international comparisons of childhood morbidity and mortality.
My particular interest is in the epidemiology of respiratory infections in children. In 2013 I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institute for Health Research to determine the burden of severe influenza in children, and examine whether influenza vaccines, antivirals and antibiotics can prevent hospital admissions. I have also carried out several studies of respiratory syncytial virus epidemiology, and antibiotic prescribing in children. I am the principal investigator for the MRC-funded Air Pollution, housing and respiratory tract Infections in Children: NatIonal birth Cohort study (PICNIC) study (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/child-health/picnic-study) and a co-I of VirusWatch, a UK community cohort study of COVID-19 (https://ucl-virus-watch.net/). I lead the analyses of English data for VERDI, a Horizon Europe funded international collaboration examining the impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern on pregnant women and children: https://verdiproject.org/
Teaching summary
I am the module lead for the 'Child and Adolescent Public Health' module for the BSc in Population Health, and teach on the 'Epidemiology for Child Health' and 'Immunisation and Communicable Diseases' modules for the MSc in Paediatrics and Child Health.
I am one of the co-investigators of the RADIANCE project, providing online training in longitudinal data science: https://radiance.org.uk/
Education
- University College London
- Other Postgraduate qualification (including professional), ATQ03 - Recognised by the HEA as a Fellow | 2018
- University College London
- Doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy | 2008
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
- Other higher degree, Master of Science | 2004
- London School of Economics and Political Science
- First Degree, Bachelor of Science | 2003
Biography
I completed my PhD in infectious disease epidemiology in the Centre for Paediatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the UCL Institute of Child Health. I used data from a rubella serosurvey in newborn babies linked to birth records to determine maternal rubella susceptibility according to country of birth. Following my PhD, I worked as a statistician at the Health Protection Agency (HPA, now Public Health England). During my time at the HPA I mainly worked on projects relating to influenza surveillance, including estimating influenza vaccine effectiveness, developing mortality monitoring systems, and analysing data from seroincidence studies of pandemic influenza A/H1N1.
I worked as a research associate in healthcare quality assessment at Imperial College before rejoining UCL to work with Professor Ruth Gilbert on a UK overview of childhood mortality in 2011.