Dr Laura Woods
BA (Oxon) MSc PhD
Associate Professor
I completed my undergraduate degree in Human Sciences at Oxford University in 1999 and my Master's degree in Medical Demography in 2001. I first joined the London School in September 2002 and completed my PhD "International differences in breast cancer survival and 'cure' by social deprivation: a comparative study of England and Australia" in September 2006.
Affiliations
Centres
Teaching
I am currently a Co-Module Organiser on the Non-Communicable Disease Epidemiology module by Distance Learning: one of the advanced modules undertaken by students enrolled in Distance Learning MSc Epidemiology. I have supervised three PhD students examining issues surrounding different types of survival analyses, net survival patterns and trends, survival according to breast cancer treatments and policy implications of cancer survival data. In the past I have also taught on the in-house courses Statistical Methods for EPH; Research, Design and Analysis; and Demographic Methods and on the short course "Cancer Survival: Principles, Methods and Applications".
Research
My research to date has focussed on inequalities in cancer survival in the UK, specifically examining patterns and trends by deprivation for all cancers as well as the role of screening and pre-diagnostic covariables in explaining socio-economic and ethnic differences in breast cancer survival. Recently I was Co-PI on an ESRC-funded study examining the specific influence of the socio-economic environment, independently of the a patient's individual deprivation status, upon survival for 6 common cancers in England. I have developed a greater interest in early cancer detection more recently, and am currently PI on a Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund grant examining the potential of using a machine learning algorithm on primary care records to identify patients at higher risk or developing pancreatic cancer.
