Dr Deirdre Hollingsworth

Assistant Professor of Epidemiology. Joint appointment University of Warwick and LSTM

Areas of interest

Infectious disease modelling.

Background

Deirdre joined the Liverpool School in January 2013 as a joint appointment between the University of Warwick and LSTM through the Centre for Applied Health Research and Delivery (CAHRD).

Prior to joining LSTM, Deirdre was a research fellow at Imperial College London in the Medical Research Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, where she worked on the transmission dynamics and evolution of influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), HIV, malaria and soil transmitted helminths (STHs).

Deirdre is an honorary lecturer at Imperial College, London, and an honorary member of the London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research (LCNTDR). She is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

Research

Deirdre is interested in using mathematical models and statistical analysis to inform the design of effective control interventions for infectious diseases, including neglected tropical diseases, HIV, malaria and outbreaks of directly transmitted pathogens..

Deirdre’s research on estimating transmission rates for HIV, both in early infection and due to variability of viral load in later infection, has been highly cited and influential in HIV control policy. She is particularly interested in finding new ways of estimating transmission rates from existing data. Her publications in this area are focussed on the dynamics of HIV in both sub-Saharan Africa and the northern hemisphere.

Deirdre’s more recent work on the dynamics of soil transmitted helminths (STHs) is focussed around understanding the drivers of the speed and extent of ‘bounce-back’ in infections following a drop in infections due to mass treatment. This research is aimed at addressing the policy question of who to treat and how often to treat to get the biggest impact. She has on-going collaborations with Simon Brooker (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and Roy Anderson (London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research) through a Gates Foundation funded grant in this area.

Selected publications

  • Soil transmitted helminths

    Anderson RM; Truscott JE; Pullan R; Brooker S; Hollingsworth TD. (2013). How Effective Is School-Based Deworming for the Community-Wide Control of Soil-Transmitted Helminths?. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. 7(2): e2027. (open access)

    Anderson R; Hollingsworth TD; Truscott J; Brooker S. (2012). Optimisation of mass chemotherapy to control soil-transmitted helminth infection. The Lancet. 379:289-290.

    HIV

    Baggaley RF; White RG; Hollingsworth TD; Boily MC. (2013). Heterosexual HIV-1 Infectiousness and Antiretroviral Use: Systematic Review of Prospective Studies of Discordant Couples. Epidemiology. 1:110-121.

    Hollingsworth TD; Laeyendecker O; Shirreff G; Donnelly CA; Serwadda D; Wawer MJ; Kiwanuka N; Nalugoda F; et alCollinson-Streng A; Ssempijja V; Hanage WP; Quinn TC; Gray RH; Fraser C. (2010). HIV-1 transmitting couples have similar viral load set-points in Rakai, Uganda. PLoS Pathogens. 6:e1000876. (open access)

    Hollingsworth TD; Anderson RM; Fraser C. (2008). HIV-1 transmission, by stage of infection. J Infectious Diseases. 198:687-693. (>150 citations in ISI Web of Science)

    Fraser C; Hollingsworth TD; Chapman R; de Wolf F; Hanage WP. (2007). Variation in HIV-1 set-point viral load: epidemiological analysis and an evolutionary hypothesis. Proc National Academy of Sciences U S A. 104:17441-17446. (open access) (Nominated for The Lancet’s Paper of the Year)

    Malaria

    Griffin JT; Hollingsworth TD; Okell LC; Churcher TS; White M; Hinsley W; Bousema T; Drakeley CJ; et alFerguson NM; Basáñez MG; Ghani AC. (2010). Reducing Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission in Africa: a model-based evaluation of intervention strategies. PLoS Medicine. 7. (open access)

    Outbreaks, influenza

    Hollingsworth TD; Klinkenberg D; Heesterbeek H; Anderson RM. (2011). Mitigation strategies for pandemic influenza A: balancing conflicting policy objectives. PLoS Computational Biology. 7:e1001076. (open access)

    Hollingsworth TD. (2009). Controlling infectious disease outbreaks: Lessons from mathematical modelling. J Public Health Policy. 30:328-341.

    Fraser C; Donnelly CA; Cauchemez S; Hanage WP; Van Kerkhove MD; Hollingsworth TD; et al. (2009). Pandemic Potential of a Strain of Influenza A (H1N1): Early Findings. Science. 324:1557-1561. (open access)

    Hollingsworth TD; Ferguson NM; Anderson RM. (2007). Frequent travelers and rate of spread of epidemics.Emerging Infectious Diseases. 13:1288-1294. (open access)

    Hollingsworth TD; Ferguson NM; Anderson RM. (2006). Will travel restrictions control the international spread of pandemic influenza?. Nature Medicine. 12:497-499.