I am a Population Health Scientist interested in better understanding the benefits and harms of treatments, with a particular focus on cardiovascular disease prevention. My research aims to develop tools which improve the targeting of preventative therapies such as antihypertensives and statins at patients with the most to gain.

I lead the Stratified TreAtments Research (STAR) Group which uses data from routine electronic health records to better understand the association between treatment and harms. Our work uses prognostic modelling techniques to predict those patients who are most likely to benefit and those most likely to suffer harm from these treatments. We also undertake systematic reviews of adverse events associated with treatment and randomised controlled trials of targeted deprescribing in older patients, including the OPTiMISE trial.

My previous work has involved developing a clinical prediction tool for PRedicting Out-of-OFfice Blood Pressure (PROOF-BP) to enable targeting of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in primary care. I teach on the Evidence Based Medicine MSc degree programme, am deputy for the departments’ Athena Swan initiative and am recent past Chair of the British and Irish Hypertension Society Young Investigator Network.

Key publications

Effect of antihypertensive medication reduction vs usual care on short-term blood pressure control in patients aged ≥ 80 years with hypertension The OPTiMISE randomized clinical trial
Journal article

MCMANUS R. and SHEPPARD J., (2020), JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association
Benefits and harms of antihypertensive treatment for low risk mild hypertension: a real world, matched cohort study of over 38,000 adults
Journal article

Sheppard JP. et al, (2018), JAMA Internal Medicine
Prospective external validation of the Predicting Out-of-OFfice Blood Pressure (PROOF-BP) strategy for triaging ambulatory monitoring in the diagnosis and management of hypertension: an observational cohort study
Journal article

Sheppard JP. et al, BMJ
Self-monitoring of blood pressure in hypertension: A systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis.
Journal article

Tucker KL. et al, (2017), PLoS medicine, 14, e1002389 - e1002389

Recent publications

Disparities in the excess risk of mortality in the first wave of COVID-19: cross sectional study of the English sentinel network.
Journal article

de Lusignan S. et al, (2020), J Infect