Laura is an econometrician specialising in obesity related research. She is an early career researcher (ECR) with a strong interest in researching obesity throughout the lifecourse, acknowledging that experiences at an early age can have significant influences on individuals when they are older.Laura’s PhD was funded by ESRC and NICE. Her thesis, titled ‘A Public Health Approach to Childhood Obesity: the Role of Econometrics’, focused on childhood obesity and the relationships between family lifestyles, socioeconomic background and obesity in children.
More recently, Laura was awarded an MRC Skills Development Fellowship to investigate obesity trajectories in older adults. This work uses large nationally representative datasets to determine the types of individuals who are more likely to follow certain BMI (as well as other measurements such as WHR) trajectories as they get older.
The research also investigates how these trajectories are linked to health outcomes in later life, with a focus on missing data and how these trajectories can be used in cost-effectiveness analysis.
Other recent work includes investigating the relationship between BMI and EQ-5D using data from weight management trials, the relationship between retirement and obesity as well as disentangling the influences of an individuals age, period (current environment) and cohort (when they were born) on their probability of living with obesity.
