Dr Bethany Shinkins

Profile

I am an Associate Professor of Health Economics in the Academic Unit of Health Economics at the University of Leeds. I lead the Test Evaluation Group, a multi-disciplinary team that focuses on the economic evaluation of medical tests. I am a statistician by background and now work as both a statistician and health economist. I joined the University of Leeds in 2015 as a Lecturer in Health Economics. The vast majority of my research is focused on the evaluation of tests, spanning a wide range of diseases and clinical settings (see below for list of current projects).

I am also Associate Director of the NIHR Leeds In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative, leading the methodology platform and working closely with industry and academic partners to improve the quality of evidence generation for in vitro diagnostic tests. 

I sit on the Editorial Board for the BMC Medical Research Methodology journal and the BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine Journal and I am a Senior Associate at the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, University of Oxford. I previously worked at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford as a NIHR Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in medical statistics. During my time there, I was awarded a junior research fellowship at Kellogg college. I also completed my DPhil at the University of Oxford, focusing on the evaluation and expansion of methodologies for reporting and analysing intermediate test results in diagnostic research.

Responsibilities

• Test Evaluation Group Lead
• Associate Director NIHR Leeds In Vitro Diagnostics MIC

Research interests

My research primarily focuses on the evaluation of medical tests. Some of the research projects I am currently working on include:

ALABAMA (ALlergy AntiBiotics And Microbial resistAnce): Penicillin allergy status and its effect on antimicrobial prescribing, patient outcomes, and antimicrobial resistance.

BioPAsSPoRT: Evaluation of a new renal diagnostic, aimed at allowing earlier and more accurate diagnosis of delayed graft function and improvement in clinical intervention, risk stratification and tailoring of individual follow-up.

CRUK CanTest Collaborative: an international team of primary care cancer researchers working on early detection and diagnosis of cancer

eGFR-C: Accuracy of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) estimation using creatinine and cystatin C and albuminuria for monitoring disease progression in patients with stage 3 chronic kidney disease: prospective longitudinal study in a multi-ethnic population.

Improving iDEntification of inflammatory ArthritiS (IDEAS) in Primary Care: a multi-disciplinary team approach

iDx-LUNG:  Lung Health Checks in Wessex and Yorkshire: Integrated Biomarker Studies

PEACH: Procalcitonin: Evaluation of antibiotic use in COVID-19 hospitalised patients 

Mammo-50: Mammographic surveillance in breast cancer patients aged 50 years or older

OPTIMA: Optimal Personalised Treatment of early breast cancer using Multi-parameter Analysis

MRC AMR Programme: Accelerating development of infection diagnostics for patient management and reduction of antibiotic misuse

SPACE: A Multicentre Study to Investigate a Protocol-Driven Multidisciplinary Service Model to Tackle 'Spurious Penicillin Allergy' in Secondary Care

The Yorkshire Lung Cancer Screening Trial

Qualifications

• DPhil in Primary Health Care (Medical Statistics) – University of Oxford, 2014
• MSc in Applied Statistics and Datamining – University of St. Andrews, 2009
• BSc in Psychology (Hons, 1st class) - University of Kent, 2007

Professional memberships

• UK Health Economics Study Group
• Health Technology Assessment International

Student education

I have extensive experience teaching both statistics and health economics. I currently run an annual CPD course on the Economic Evaluation of Tests. I also co-teach on an annual week-long course with the University of Alberta and University of Edinburgh on cost-effectiveness modelling.

I am a Senior Associate Tutor at the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, University of Oxford and continue to teach on their MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care course.

I am currently supervising five PhD students: Stephen Bradley, Katharina Diernberger, Paola Cocco, Noel Aruparayil, and Bryony Dawkins.

Research groups and institutes

• Leeds Institute of Health Sciences
• Diagnostics and pathology
• Academic Unit of Health Economics
• Test Evaluation Group
• Surgical technology
• Infection and antimicrobial resistance
• Cancer
• Decision Modelling Group
• Health economics
• Primary care
• Primary Care Oncology
• Division of Primary Care, Palliative Care and Public Health
• Evidence Synthesis Group
• Inflammatory Musculoskeletal
• Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine
• Musculoskeletal disease

Current postgraduate researchers

• Paola Cocco