Dr Marlous Hall

Profile

I joined the University as a Medical Statistician in 2009, alongside which I completed a PhD in Paediatric Cancer Epidemiology. In 2014 I was promoted to Senior Epidemiologist in Cardiovascular Epidemiology and, in 2017, was awarded a personal Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship and appointed as a University Academic Fellow. I am now Associate Professor of Epidemiology and established my research group in Survivorship and Multimorbidity Epidemiology. In 2025, I was awarded a £2m Wellcome Career Development Award for Transforming clinical evidence: causal inference in electronic healthcare records to improve inclusivity in management of myocardial infarction with multimorbidity, which aims to generate more inclusive treatment evidence for people with complex disease profiles using population-scale health data.

I am Deputy Head of the Clinical and Population Sciences Department within the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine (LICAMM); Lead of the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA) Health Community and Co-Director of the 4-year British Heart Foundation PhD Programme in Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes.

Responsibilities

• Deputy Head of Department for Clinical and Population Sciences Department, , LICAMM
• LIDA Health Community Lead
• British Heart Foundation 4-year PhD Programme Co-Director

Research interests

My research focuses on improving clinical evidence for people living with multiple long-term conditions (multimorbidity), particularly those with cardiovascular disease. I have extensive expertise in advanced analytical methods applied to large-scale electronic healthcare records and linked administrative datasets, with a particular interest in generating robust, clinically relevant evidence from real-world data.

My methodological interests include causal inference and target trial emulation as well as advanced survival analyses such as flexible parametric survival modelling, relative survival and multistate modelling. Through my Wellcome Career Development Award, I am developing methodological frameworks that use population-scale healthcare records to generate more inclusive evidence for the management of myocardial infarction in people with multimorbidity.

I work with a range of national and local linked data resources, including Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), primary care datasets and cardiovascular audit data such as the Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project (MINAP). My research examines the development, clustering and consequences of multimorbidity as well as treatment effectiveness in under-represented patient groups, health inequalities and long-term outcomes across a range of chronic conditions including cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, kidney and mental health conditions.

Prior to moving into cardiovascular epidemiology, I worked in paediatric cancer epidemiology, using data from the Yorkshire Specialist Register of Cancer in Children and Young People linked with HES data to investigate cancer outcomes and survivorship.

Qualifications

• BSc in Mathematics, University of Sheffield
• MSc in Statistics, University of Sheffield
• PhD in Paediatric Cancer Epidemiology, University of Leeds
• University of Leeds Teaching and Research Award (ULTRA) (MSc)

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, University of Leeds
• Full PGR Supervisor Recognition, UK Council for Graduate Education

Student education

Postgraduate Research Supervision

Please contact me directly about potential PhD opportunities in the area of data science, cardiovascular disease and multimorbidity.

A list of current and past postgraduate research students and projects are listed below.
Tamara Garcia Del Toro, PhD – 4-year BHF PhD Programme. ‘Evaluating the impact of multimorbidity on guideline- recommended therapy for myocardial infarction using nationwide real-world clinical data.’ Full time, Started Oct 2023.

Jonathan Batty, PhD – 4ward North Fellowship in ‘The impact of multimorbidity on long-term outcomes after myocardial infarction’ Full time, started August 2022.

Eman S Alsaeed, PhD – International PhD Academy. ‘An investigation of AF-related stroke using observational data’. Full time, started April 2019.

Oliver Todd, PhD - Dunhill Medical Trust PhD Fellowship in ‘Optimising blood pressure management for older people with frailty’. Full time, awarded 2020.

Chris Wilkinson, MD - Cardiovascular outcomes and prognosis in older people with frailty: a cohort study using electronic health records. Part Time, awarded May 2019.

Tatendashe Bernadette Dondo, PhD - Quality of care and clinical outcomes following Acute Myocardial Infarction: High resolution investigation using electronic health record data. Part Time, awarded June 2018.

Arwa AlThumairi, PhD - Describing variation in hospital activity following completion of treatment for childhood and adolescent cancer in Yorkshire and the impact on survival. Full Time, awarded February 2017.

Christopher D. Lethaby, MD - Time to diagnosis of cancer in children and young adults in secondary care services. Full Time, awarded August 2013.

Undergraduate and Taught Postgraduate Student Education

Previous and current teaching committments include module management, disseration supervision, leading small group tutorials and production of course materials and assessments. My areas of activity focus on student eduction in statistics and research methods for medical undergraduate students, as well as research led activities for postgraduate students. In addition, I was Deputy Programme lead for the MSc in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from 2014 to 2017.

Research groups and institutes

• Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine
• Clinical and Population Science
• Cardiometabolic
• British Heart Foundation - Cardiovascular research
• Multidisciplinary Cardiovascular Research Centre

Current postgraduate researchers

• Dr Chris Wilkinson
• Tamara Garcia del Toro