Dr Luke Mounce

About me:

I am a Health Services Researcher working within Primary Care, and particularly Cancer Epidemiology, at the University of Exeter Medical School. I have expertise in methodology, especially applied statistics, and in the management and analysis of large databases of routine records to answer health research questions.

I am the lead Statistician on the Electronic Risk Assessment for Cancer (ERICA) cluster-randomised controlled trial, exploring whether electronic risk assessment tools (eRATs) embedded into GP clinical software improve cancer diangosis outcomes. Specifically, through use of the English national cancer registration data, we are investigating whether eRATs improve the proportion of cancers diagnosed at an early stage.

As a methodologist, I have work across various groups within the University of Exeter Medical School. I am jointly shared between Professor Willie Hamilton in Cancer Diagnostics, and Dr Gary Abel in Primary Care. I am also affiliated with the Health Statistics Group, and Health Services and Policy Research Group. Previously I worked in the Epidemiology and Public Health group.

Before joining the medical school in 2012, I earned a BSc, MSc and PhD in Psychology at the University of Exeter, with my PhD focussing on the longitudinal modelling of health outcomes following traumatic brain injury.

Interests:

I am a methodologist, and seek to translate clinically important research questions into a scientifically rigorous research protocol, and then to carry that out. As such, I work across a range of fields within health research. My work has focussed particulary on cancer epidemiology, the causes and consequences of having multiple heatlh conditions (multimorbidity), and patient experience of Primary Care.

I have considerable expertise in the use of routine records, including:

• The Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), the largest database of electronic primary care records in the world.
• The National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS) cancer registration data, covering over 99% of all cancers diagnosed within England.
• Hospital Episode Statistics
• The GP Patient Survey (GPPS), the largest survey of patient experience of Primary Care in the world, with 2.7 million annual responses.
• The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) database, a national panel survey of adults aged 50 and over, with waves every two years since 2002.

Qualifications:

BSc (hons) in Psychology (Exeter, UK)

MSc in Psychological Research Methods (Exeter, UK)

PhD in Psychology (focus: clinical neuropsychology) (Exeter, UK)

Graduate Certificate in Statistics (Sheffield, UK)