EDUCATION
RESEARCH
Dr. Shah Ebrahim DM, FRCP
Chair of Public Health and Policy at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Director, South Asia Network for Chronic Disease, Public Health Foundation of India
Amphitheatre (Level 2)
Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore
8 College Road
Singapore 169857
Prof Tazeen JAFAR, MD
Professor
Program in Health Services & Systems Research (HSSR)
Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School
Singapore
Ms Janice Tan, Admin Assistant
Program in Health Services & Systems Research (HSSR)
Tel: 6601-2018, Email: janice.tan@duke-nus.edu.sg
Establishing causal relationships between environmental exposures and common diseases is beset with problems of unresolved confounding, reverse causation and selection bias that may result in spurious inferences. Mendelian randomization, in which a functional genetic variant acts as a proxy for an environmental exposure, provides a means of overcoming these problems. As with all genetic epidemiology studies there is the need for large sample sizes and for relevant functional genetic variants. Limiations in relation to pleiotropy and canalisation are discussed. If correctly conducted and carefully interpreted, Mendelian randomization studies can provide useful evidence to support or reject causal hypotheses linking environmental exposures to common diseases.
Shah Ebrahim holds the chair of public health and policy at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and is a clinical epidemiologist with research interests in the causes of heart disease and stroke in women, the effects of migration on obesity and diabetes in India, and disability in old age. He directs the British Women’s Heart & Health Study – a national cohort study of British women – established in 1999. He is also coordinating editor of the Cochrane Heart Group which produces systematic reviews of the effects of interventions for heart diseases. He is co-editor of the International Journal of Epidemiology since 2000. He set up the South Asia Network for Chronic Disease with the Public Health Foundation of India in New Delhi four years ago through a strategic award from Wellcome Trust and is resident in New Delhi, India. With colleagues at Public Health Foundation of India, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and 12 other British Universities he has established a programme to strengthen research and educational capacity for public health in India, also funded by a Wellcome Trust strategic award. He has published over 400 peer reviewed papers.
All are welcome.
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