Professor John Edmunds

Professor John Edmunds interests are in designing effective and cost-effective control programmes against infectious diseases. This entails a mixture of mathematical models, statistical and economic analysis, and sociological studies (trying to understand how we mix, so that we can model the spread of diseases better). 

The emphasis is placed on the application of these methods to real-world problems to enable decision-makers to optimise the design of public-health control programmes. 

Before joining the School I was the Head of the Modelling and Economics Unit at the HPA (now called Public Health England), and I still work with colleagues in PHE very closesly on issues related to the UK vaccination programme and influenza.

John's main research interests involve the development and application of mathematical models to help address public health decisions. Examples include the real-time analysis and modelling of the ebola crisis in West Africa; the 2009 swine flu pandemic; analysis of HPV vaccination policy in the UK; and modelling the impact of chlamydia screening.

John is particularly interested in helping to develop better mathematical models of the spread of close-contact infections (like measles, influenza, and pneumococcal disease) through the collection and analysis of data on human contact patterns.