Biography
Julian Little has been a Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health (Director 2006-2016) at the University of Ottawa since 2004. He currently holds a Distinguished Research Chair in Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Control. His PhD, from Aberdeen University, was on problems of ascertainment of congenital anomalies. He has worked for the EUROCAT Central Registry in Brussels (Belgium, 1983-4)), as a lecturer in epidemiology in Nottingham University (1984-9), as an epidemiologist in the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon (1989-1994), and as Professor of Epidemiology at Aberdeen University (1994-2004). In addition, he has worked during periods of academic leave at the Office of Genomics and Disease Prevention, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, Atlanta, USA, 2002-3), the Clinical Research Unit, Xinhua Hospital (affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, China, 2016) and in the Department of Biomedical and Specialty Surgical Sciences, University of Ferrara (Italy, 2017). Research in which he is currently involved includes:
[1] Congenital anomalies, (a) B-group vitamins and global health; (b) completeness of ascertainment; (c) prenatal screening;
[2] Psychosis and affective psychosis, (a) within-week variation in in-hospital outcomes for patients with psychosis and affective psychosis; (b) trajectories of hospitalizations; and (c) the development and testing of a multifaceted intervention including physical activity aimed at improving physical health and quality of life;
[3] Knowledge synthesis and public health, co-PI of the Knowledge Synthesis and Application Unit (KSAU). Work includes supporting development of preventive healthcare guidelines by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care (ongoing projects relate to screening for cancer, depression and hypertension, tobacco cessation, interventions to reduce potentially inappropriate prescribing, and interventions to prevent cardiovascular disease), surgical efficiencies and relating to SARS-CoV-2;
[4] SARS-CoV-2, involved in studies of immune response in diverse population subgroups, in living evidence synthesis of variants of concern and vaccine effectiveness, and evidence syntheses on rapid testing and risk of transmission associated with different activities and settings.
There are opportunities for student projects on (1) B-group vitamins and global health; (2) responding to emerging trends in prenatal screening; (3) application of capture-recapture methods to investigate completeness of ascertainment of congenital anomalies; (4) psychosis and affective psychosis; (5) advancing knowledge synthesis; (6) SARS-CoV-2; (7) analysis of audiometric tests; and (8) risk of cataract in workers in the nuclear industry.