Dr Darren C Greenwood

Profile

Having initially studied mathematics at the University of Southampton, Darren moved to Leicester to specialise in medical statistics. After gaining his MSc, Darren worked in Nottingham with cardiovascular trial data, running a study of knee injury and osteoarthritis, and was statistical lead a randomised controlled trial of grommets for children with glue ear. Darren’s PhD thesis was on the topic of statistical analysis of measurement error in epidemiological exposures, from the University of Leeds. In 1996 he took the position of Lecturer in Medical Statistics at the University, and headed up the University's fledgling medical statistics group in the School of Medicine, taking the position of Senior Lecturer in Biostatistics in 2007.

Darren is on the Editorial Board for a number of journals including the International Journal of Obesity and BMC Medicine. He am a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), providing independent scientific advice on nutrition and related health matters to the Department of Health and Social Care and other UK government organisations. He also contribute to a number of SACN working groups, including joint work with Diabetes UK, maternal health, and methods development, and the UK Nutrition and Health Claims Committee (UKNHCC), providing scientific advice to the UK government on the substantiation of scientific evidence underpinning nutrition and health claims. He was recently the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Nutritional Epidemiology.

Responsibilities

• Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Nutritional Epidemiology
• Deputy Programme Lead, MSc in Health Data Analytics

Research interests

Darren’s research interests are built around analysis of complex data structures, such as hierarchical data, rapidly fluctuating exposure data, and outcome data that varies over time, many of which benefit from a Bayesian perspective. He has developed and applied statistical methods to a range of clinical areas, including maternal health and nutrition, perinatal epidemiology, cardiometabolic outcomes, and more recently Long COVID. Darren has designed and had been statistical lead on a number of randomized controlled trials of complex interventions, including cluster randomized trials of diet and obesity. He has been supervised methodology and led a number of meta-analyses including multivariate meta-analyses, including as expert statistical advisor to the World Cancer Research Fund Continuous Update Project. His recent work has involved the application of methods to big data linkage in obesity and nutrition, and intensive longitudinal data in Long COVID.

• A randomised controlled trial of an intervention to improve uptake of bowel cancer screening in ethnic and non-ethnic minority groups
• Assessing iodine status and associated health effects in British women during pregnancy
• Evaluation of national Long COVID data in England
• Evaluation of national Long COVID data in Scotland
• Nutrition, growth and health in pre-school children (Growing Well study)
• World Health Organisation collaborating centre for nutrition epidemiology

Qualifications

• PhD Biostatistics and epidemiology
• MSc Medical statistics
• BSc Mathematics
• PGCert Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Student education

I currently teach undergraduate medics on the MBChB, postgraduates on the MSc in Health Research, and supervise seven PhD students across three Faculties.

Research groups and institutes

• Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine
• Clinical and Population Science
• Populations