Professor Debbie Lawlor

Summary

Keywords

• Aetiological Epidemiology
• Causality
• Mendelian randomization
• Life course
• Genetic
• Epigenetic
• Metabolomics

Skills

• Coronary Heart Disease
• Diabetes
• Infertility
• Women's Reproductive health

Processes and functions

• Analyses of prospective cohort studies and randomised controlled trials
• GWAS

Methodologies

• Mendelian Randomization
• Multilevel models
• Within and between sibling comparisons
• negative controls

Expertise

My main areas of expertise are in the life course and genetic epidemiology of cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and diabetes. I have a medical background, two MSc (one in Public Health and one in Statistics) and a PhD in epidemiology. I enjoy explaining what research results in the areas of diabetes and heart disease mean to members of the public and using all forms of the media to effectively promote public health messages.

life course epidemiology

genetic epidemiology

cardiovascular disease

insulin resistance

diabetes

statistical methods

Memberships

Organisations

School of Social and Community Medicine

Other sites

• Bhi
• Populationhealth

Centres, collaborations and units

• MRC Centre for Causal Analyses in Translational Epidemiology
• Centre for Public Health
• MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit

Links

• Connors Centre for Women's Health & Gender Biology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston
• The Robinson Institute, Adelaide
• AFLY5
• ALSPAC
•   Born in Bradford birth cohort

Selected publications

• Kipping, RR, Howe, LD, Jago, R, Campbell, R, Wells, S, Chittleborough, CR, Mytton, J, Noble, SM, Peters, TJ & Lawlor, DA, 2014, ‘Effect of intervention aimed at increasing physical activity, reducing sedentary behaviour, and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in children: Active for Life Year 5 (AFLY5) school based cluster randomised controlled trial’. BMJ, vol 348.
• Horikoshi, M, Yaghootkar, H, Mook-Kanamori, DO, Sovio, U, Taal, HR, Hennig, BJ, Bradfield, JP, St Pourcain, B, Evans, DM, Charoen, P, Kaakinen, M, Cousminer, DL, Lehtimäki, T, Kreiner-Møller, E, Warrington, NM, Bustamante, M, Feenstra, B, Berry, DJ, Thiering, E, Pfab, T, Barton, SJ, Shields, BM, Kerkhof, M, van Leeuwen, EM, Fulford, AJ, Kutalik, Z, Zhao, JH, den Hoed, M, Mahajan, A, Lindi, V, Goh, L-K, Hottenga, J-J, Wu, Y, Raitakari, OT, Harder, MN, Meirhaeghe, A, Ntalla, I, Salem, RM, Jameson, KA, Zhou, K & others 2013, ‘New loci associated with birth weight identify genetic links between intrauterine growth and adult height and metabolism’. Nature Genetics, vol 45., pp. 76-82
• Lawlor, DA, Wills, AK, Fraser, A, Sayers, A, Fraser, WD & Tobias, JH, 2013, ‘Association of maternal vitamin D status during pregnancy with bone-mineral content in offspring: a prospective cohort study’. Lancet, vol 381., pp. 2176-2183
• West, J, Lawlor, DA, Fairley, L, Bhopal, R, Cameron, N, McKinney, PA, Sattar, N & Wright, J, 2013, ‘UK-born Pakistani-origin infants are relatively more adipose than white British infants: findings from 8704 mother-offspring pairs in the Born-in-Bradford prospective birth cohort’. Journal of epidemiology and community health, vol 67., pp. 544-51
• Nelson, S & Lawlor, D, 2011, ‘Predicting Live Birth, Preterm Delivery, and Low Birth Weight in Infants Born from In Vitro Fertilisation: A Prospective Study of 144,018 Treatment Cycles’. PLoS Medicine, vol 8.
• Lawlor, DA & Nelson, SM, 2012, ‘Effect of age on decisions about the numbers of embryos to transfer in assisted conception: a prospective study’. Lancet, vol 379., pp. 521-527
• Lawlor, D, Mortenson, L & Anderson, AN, 2011, ‘Mechanisms underlying the associations of maternal age with adverse perinatal outcomes: a sibling study of 264 695 Danish women and their firstborn offspring’. International Journal of Epidemiology, vol 40(5)., pp. 1205 - 1214
• Lawlor, DA, Harbord, RM, Sterne, JAC, Timpson, NJ & Smith, GD, 2008, ‘Mendelian randomization: Using genes as instruments for making causal inferences in epidemiology’. Statistics in Medicine, vol 27., pp. 1133-1163
• Lawlor, DA, Timpson, NJ, Harbord, RM, Leary, SD, Ness, A, McCarthy, MI, Frayling, TM, Hattersley, AT & Smith, GD, 2008, ‘Exploring the Developmental Overnutrition Hypothesis Using Parental–Offspring Associations and FTO as an Instrumental Variable’. PLoS Medicine, vol 5., pp. e33
• Smith, GD, Lawlor, D, Harbord, R, Timpson, N, Day, I & Ebrahim, S, 2007, ‘Clustered environments and randomized genes: a fundamental distinction between conventional and genetic epidemiology’. PLoS Medicine, vol 4., pp. e352

Read more >

View complete publications list in the University of Bristol publications system

Networks & contacts

• Prof Scott Nelson University of Glasgow Prof Naveed Sattar University of Glasgow Prof John Wright Bradford Health Research Institute Prof Lucialla Poston King's College London Prof Jodie Dodds
• Robinson Institute
• University of Adelaide Prof Julie Owens
• Robinson Institute
• University of Adeilaide Prof Janet Rich-Edwards
• Harvard University

Projects

• Accessible Resource for Integrated Epigenomics Studies (ARIES)
• Active for Life Year 5
• Activity and Healthy Eating in Adolescence (AHEAD)
• Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)