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Miss Lola Solebo
Principal Clinical Research Fellow
Population, Policy & Practice Dept
UCL GOS Institute of Child Health
- Joined UCL
- 7th Aug 2013
Research summary
As an epidemiologist, my interests lie around the "Who, What, Why, How" of childhood eye and vision disorders - developing and undertaking epidemiological and data science studies to generate useful information on who is at risk and the determinants (why?) of those risks, what outcomes are and the determinants of those outcomes, and understanding how we translate these findings into changes in clinical practice and health policy.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8933-5864
TEDx Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/dr_lola_solebo_through_the_eyes_of_a_child
Childhood Uveitis Signs and Symptoms Studies (ChUSS)
These studies aim to understand the determinants of outcome for a rare, potentially blinding childhood inflammatory eye disease, Uveitis:
The childhood uveitis imaging studies are improving how we phenotype, monitor and treat disease. These studies are partnered by a Citizen Science Zooniverse Study.
The UveQ study is developing a child-reported eye symptom score.
UNICORNS, the national prospective cohort study, is also undertaking the work necessary to harmonise routinely collected clinical data - work which is necessary for multi-centre rare eye disease studies. In the UK, collectively, rare disease is the commonest cause of childhood blindness.
IoLunder2
Worldwide, cataract is aleading cause of avoidable childhood blindness. IoLunder2, an internationally unique national observational longitudinal study, has established findings which are informing practice and policy:
https://www.thelancet.com/doi/story/10.1016/audio.2018.10.31.107423
BCVIS2
The British Childhood Visual Impairment Blindness study is providing detailed epidemiological data, necessary for planning and evaluating population health and clinical strategies and services.
Key findings
Childhood Vision Screening
Findings from our NSC commissioned systematic review into childhood vision screening informed the national Childhood Vision Screening programme.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60522-5/fulltext
I am have contributed to national & international health policy as a member of the National Screening Committee's Vision Screening Advisory Group and of the World Health Organization's Paediatric Eye Care Interventions Development Group.
Biography
I fell in love with Epidemiology at medical school after hearing about John Snow, and fancied myself as a future medical detective.
I was a PhD student at UCL GOS ICH, and have stayed because of the warmth, generosity and cross-disciplinary nature of the staff and students here, and the quality and impact of our output – as well as the strong relationships between ICH, GOSH and the other UCL partners such as the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Moorfields.
The GOS ICH Population, Policy and Practice Research and Teaching Department, PPP, of which I am Deputy Head of Department, is home to research, teaching and translational activities which aim to improve the health of children and young people now and throughout their adult lives.
As lead of the Institute's Race Equity Group, I'm also proud to be part of a team which formulates and supports the implementation of actions which address the challenges of inequality in academia.
My partner and I are parents to two elemental forces disguised as human girls https://medscilife.org/stories/dr-lola-solebo/