Close

Dr Ford Hickson

Associate Professor

United Kingdom

After graduating BSc Psychology in 1988, Ford worked at Terrence Higgins Trust and Frontliners. He joined Sigma Research in 1990. Sigma Research joined LSHTM in 2011.

Ford has spent the last thirty years researching and describing patterns of sex between men, particularly with reference to HIV/STI transmission. Between 1997 and 2008 he led the design of the National Gay Men’s Sex Survey and was centrally involved in the European MSM Internet Survey in 2010 and 2017.

In 1998 he co-authored England's national HIV prevention strategy for gay and bisexual men (Making It Count) with a group of community health promoters, which was subsequently adopted by the Department of Health. He has sat on several HIV and MSM related committees, including the Office for National Statistics’ Sexual Identity Project Expert Research Group.

Ford's doctoral thesis (Portsmouth University, 2008) was on Authority, HIV and Sex between Men in England. He has co-authored over 60 peer reviewed journal articles, two books, numerous monographs and several book chapters. He also holds a BA in Opera Studies (Rose Bruford College, 2014).

Affiliations

Department of Public Health, Environments and Society
Faculty of Public Health and Policy

Centres

Centre for Evaluation
Antimicrobial Resistance Centre

Teaching

Ford is a Programme Director for the MSc Public Health. He is a module organiser, lecturer and seminar leader for 'Principles of Social Research' (Term 1), and delivers lecturers on 'Alcohol, Tobacco & Other Drugs', 'Control of STIs/RTIs', 'Health Promotion Approaches and Methods' and 'Sexual Health' (Term 2).

Research

Ford is currently working on improvement of the recording of sex, gender and sexuality in quantitative public health data generation.

He is also engaged in the Taiwan-UK Sex, Gender & Sexuality Health Research Network (TUSHRN) which is fostering collaborative research on the health of sex, gender and sexuality minorities.

Research Area
Gender identity, sexuality
Socio-cultural aspects of sex
Sexual behaviour
Sexual health
Disease and Health Conditions
Drug addiction
Mental health
Sexually transmitted infections
Country
United Kingdom
Taiwan
Region
European Union

Selected Publications

Spatio-temporal changes in pre-exposure prophylaxis uptake among MSM in mainland France between 2016 and 2021: a Bayesian small area approach with MSM population estimation
Wang, H; Molina, J-M; Dray-Spira, R; SCHMIDT, AJ; HICKSON, F; Van de Vijver, D; Jonas, KJ;
2023
Journal of the International AIDS Society
Behavioural intervention to reduce sexually transmitted infections in people aged 16–24 years in the UK: the safetxt RCT
FREE, C; PALMER, MJ; Potter, K; MCCARTHY, OL; Jerome, L; BERENDES, S; Gubijev, A; Knight, M; JAMAL, Z; Dhaliwal, F; CARPENTER, JR; Morris, TP; EDWARDS, P; FRENCH, R; Macgregor, L; Turner, KM E; Baraitser, P; HICKSON, FC I; WELLINGS, K; ROBERTS, I; Bailey, JV; Hart, G; Michie, S; CLAYTON, T; DEVRIES, K;
2023
Public health research
Sexual happiness and satisfaction with sexual safety among German trans men who have sex with men: results from EMIS-2017
Appenroth, MN; Koppe, U; HICKSON, F; Schink, S; Hahne, A; SCHMIDT, AJ; WEATHERBURN, P; Marcus, U;
2022
Journal of the International AIDS Society
Safetxt: A randomised controlled trial of a behavioural intervention delivered by text messages to reduce sexually transmitted re-infections in people aged 16-24
FREE, C; PALMER, M; MCCARTHY, O; Jerome, L; BERENDES, S; Knight, M; CARPENTER, J; Morris, T; JAMAL, Z; Dhaliwal, F; FRENCH, R; HICKSON, FC I; Gubijev, A; WELLINGS, K; Baraitser, P; ROBERTS, I; Bailey, J; CLAYTON, T; DEVRIES, K; EDWARDS, P; Hart, G; Michie, S; Macgregor, L; Turner, KM E; Potter, K;
2022
British Medical Journal
Effectiveness of a behavioural intervention delivered by text messages (safetxt) on sexually transmitted reinfections in people aged 16-24 years: randomised controlled trial.
FREE, C; PALMER, MJ; MCCARTHY, OL; Jerome, L; BERENDES, S; Knight, M; CARPENTER, JR; Morris, TP; Jamal, Z; Dhaliwal, F; FRENCH, RS; HICKSON, FC I; Gubijev, A; WELLINGS, K; Baraitser, P; ROBERTS, I; Bailey, JV; CLAYTON, T; DEVRIES, K; EDWARDS, P; Hart, G; Michie, S; Macgregor, L; Turner, KM E; Potter, K;
2022
BMJ
Social and behavioural determinants of syphilis: Modelling based on repeated cross-sectional surveys from 2010 and 2017 among 278,256 men who have sex with men in 31 European countries.
Mendez-Lopez, A; Stuckler, D; Marcus, U; HICKSON, F; Noori, T; Whittaker, RN; Jansen, K; Diaz, A; Henszel, L; Velter, A; Semenza, JC; SCHMIDT, AJ;
2022
The Lancet regional health. Europe
Transmission dynamics of the 2016-18 outbreak of hepatitis A among men who have sex with men in England and cost-effectiveness analysis of vaccination strategies to prevent future outbreaks.
Zhang, X-S; Ong, JJ; Macgregor, L; Vilaplana, TG; Heathcock, ST; Mindlin, M; WEATHERBURN, P; HICKSON, F; Edelstein, M; Mandal, S; Vickerman, P;
2022
The Lancet Regional Health Europe
What is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among MSM into a continuous scale level variable? A secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries.
Mendez-Lopez, A; HICKSON, F; Jansen, K; Lachowsky, N; Burns, F; Folch, C; Velter, A; WEATHERBURN, P; Marcus, U; Von Rüden, U; Mirandola, M; Gios, L; Frankis, J; Brennan, DJ; SCHMIDT, AJ;
2022
BMC Medical Research Methodology
The cost-effectiveness of case-finding strategies for achieving hepatitis C elimination among men who have sex with men in the UK.
Macgregor, L; Ward, Z; Martin, NK; Nicholls, J; Desai, M; HICKSON, F; WEATHERBURN, P; Hickman, M; Vickerman, P;
2021
Journal of viral hepatitis
See more information