Biography
Dr Lydia Drumright is University Lecturer of Clinical Informatics in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. Within Cambridge Clinical Informatics, she directs the science and research activities, and facilitates expansion of the Centre through collaborations and securing external funding.
Dr Drumright received her Bachelors of Science in Biochemistry and Cellular Biology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where she engaged in molecular biology and human and pathogen genomics within the Department of Psychiatry and at the Salk Institute. Following her undergraduate training and significant involvement in laboratory research focus on pathways of disease in humans, Dr Drumright went on to received a Masters in Public Health (MPH) in Health Education and Community Health. During her Masters, Dr Drumright gained hands-on experience in community outreach, mobilisation and behavioural interventions. She interned with Los Angeles County Department of Health and Human Services, where she learned how research could be transformed into public health practice through policy. In 2006, Dr Drumright received her PhD in Public Health in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology jointly from the Department of Medicine at UCSD and the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University, where her research focused on sexually transmitted infections, HIV and hepatitis C infections in clinical and community settings.
Research
Human health is influenced by many factors including the environments in which we live. Both the built and natural environment can shape our access to food, water, healthcare and other resources, influence infectious disease transmission, modify our behaviours, and influence social dynamics; all of which modify our health risks. As an infectious diseases epidemiologist, I have a keen interest in factors that influence human health in different settings worldwide, including individual-level to network-level factors. As a clinical informatician, I appreciate the wealth of information that exists to inform this type of research and I strive to capture it in accessible electronic forms, where this has not yet been implemented, and combine unusual and unique datasets for greater understanding. I am interested in working with colleagues across diverse sectors to develop innovative interdisciplinary studies to support our understanding of (a) human-environment interactions that lead to different health states; (b) new methods to capture and combine diverse datasets to support our understanding of health; and (c) models of how humans survive and thrive an factors that influence these states in various international settings.
Research interests include:
- Infectious diseases, primarily gastrointestinal illnesses, bloodborne infections
- Innovate use of routinely collected data
- Electronic data capture and reuse from routine processes
- Environmental (built and natural) impact on human health
- Differentiating factors associated with human survival vs thriving
- Both large and small area disease mapping
- Health outcomes research
- Interdisciplinary projects
Publications
Drumright LN, Weir SS, Frost SDW. The role of venues in structuring HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and risk networks among men who have sex with men. BMC Public Health. 2018 18(1).
Short CA, Drumright LN, Noakes C, Woods A, Gainty C, Schoefert K, Tantardini L. Excising infection in the surgical environment (ExCISE). Bulletin of the Royal College of surgeons of England. 2018 100(1) 26-29.
Gharbi M, Moore LS, Castro-Sánchez E, Spanoudaki E, Grady C, Holmes AH, Drumright LN. A needs assessment study for optimising prescribing practice in secondary care junior doctors: the Antibiotic Prescribing Education among Doctors (APED). BMC Infect Dis. 2016 Aug 30;16(1):456. doi: 10.1186/s12879-016-1800-z.PMID: 27576784
Charani E, Gharbi M, Frost G, Drumright L, Holmes A. Antimicrobial therapy in obesity: a multicentre cross-sectional study. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2015 Oct;70(10):2906-12. doi: 10.1093/jac/dkv189. PMID: 26174720
Drumright LN, Frost SD, Elliot AJ, Catchpole M, Pebody RG, Atkins M, Harrison J, Parker P, Holmes AH. Assessing the use of hospital staff influenza-like absence (ILA) for enhancing hospital preparedness and national surveillance. BMC Infect Dis. 2015 Mar 1;15:110. doi: 10.1186/s12879-015-0789-z. PMID: 25886745
