Thomas Shepherd

Biography

Dr Thomas Shepherd is Senior Lecturer in Public Health and Primary Care in the School of Medicine at Keele University. Dr Shepherd is also the Deputy Director of the Institute of Global Health and Wellbeing at Keele with oversight of global health research and education across the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Dr Shepherd graduated with a BSc from Keele University in 2007 before completing a MSc in Research Methods in 2008 for which he received a distinction award. Dr Shepherd completed a PhD in neuropsychology with a thesis; ‘Exploring the effect of dopaminergic medication on recognition memory in idiopathic Parkinson’s disease: trials and challenges’. His doctoral studies used a series of randomised controlled trials to compare the effects of different Parkinson's medications on patients' memory and mood. It also explored barriers to participation in clinical trials for both patients with Parkinson’s and caregivers.

More recently, Dr Shepherd has transitioned into global public health. His research interests include the rising burden associated mental health conditions in low-middle income countries as well as intervention development for people living with long term chronic disease. Dr Shepherd has a particular research interest in the interaction between HIV and mental ill-health and the development of psychosocial interventions designed to support young people living with this co-morbidity. He has further interests in infodemiology/epidemiology practices and the use of novel datasets to explore health surveillance and global disease awareness. Dr Shepherd's research is built upon a strong Community Engagement and Involvement ethos, research ethics and is dedicated to building health research capacity in low resource settings.

Dr Shepherd has since secured funding from the Newton Fund, the Medical Research Council (MRC), Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD) School for Primary Care (SPCR) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and has developed collaborative research networks in Sri Lanka, Philippines, Pakistan, Malaysia, Lesotho, South Africa, Brazil, Vietnam and others.

Research and scholarship

Dr Shepherd has research interests around the identification and management of musculoskeletal conditions, mental health disorders and co-morbidity in marginalised populations, such as those in low to middle income countries. Thomas also has an interest in the medical education curricula in developing countries, particularly relating to the training of primary care physicians.

Thomas has a strong methodological background with expertise in randomised controlled trials, epidemiology, statistics and has extensive experience in the use of qualitative methodologies.

Thomas is passionate about the inclusion of patient public involvement groups in the development of appropriate and clinically relevant research questions and is strongly supportive of interdisciplinary research collaborations.

Current projects:

Global Health

• Adolescent mental health, substance abuse and pain in a post conflict  region of Sri Lanka (Newton Fund).
• Supervised treatment for outpatients with Schizophrenia (STOPS+) (Medical Research Council – Global Alliance for Chronic Disease).
• Establishing a child and adolescent twin registry in Sri Lanka (Medical Research Council - pump-priming award).
• Transforming Primary Healthcare in the Philippines: An innovative Pilot Postgraduate Professional Development Program for Primary Physicians in the Province of Northern Samar (iPRIME) (Newton Fund).
• Stories Of public health through Local Art-based Community Engagement (SOLACE) (Arts and Humanities Research Council/Medical Research Council Global Partnership joint award).
• NIHR Global Health Unit: Slum Health (Warwick).
• Illness perceptions of patients with type 2 diabetes with and without depression in Sri Lanka (Diabetes and Depression – Sri Lanka).
• Community based interventions for children with autism in low to middle income countries.
• Developing synchronous Problem Based Learning between Keele and Boticatu for global public health.

UK

• General Practitioner and Nurse Practitioner awareness of Female Genital Mutilation in the West Midlands
• Illness perceptions of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus with and without depression (Diabetes and Depression) (School of Primary Care Research)
• Rheumatological and Inflammatory conditions as risk factors for self-harm: a retrospective cohort study (School for Primary Care)
• Forum for Research into Rural and Health and Wellbeing (FRRESH) (Keele Innovation Award) 

Thomas currently supervises:

• Buddhika Fernando (PhD, School for Primary Care)
• Asiri Hewemelage (Sri Lankan Ministry of Health)

Teaching

Tom has been a Teaching Fellow in the School of Psychology at Keele and has a diverse range of teaching experience. He has given lecturers and seminars across a range of topics as well as leading research methods teaching (quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis techniques). Tom has also facilitated Problem Based Learning in years 1 and 2 of the undergraduate medicine programme.