Unit of Healthcare Epidemiology

Olena Seminog is a postdoctoral researcher at the Unit of Health-Care Epidemiology in the Big Data Institute working on epidemiology of cardiovascular and neurologic disease. Olena studied medicine and worked as a doctor in Ukraine and the Maldives before joining Oxford. In 2016 she completed the DPhil in Population Health at Oxford supervised by Professor Michael Goldacre and Dr Peter Scarborough.

Olena’s DPhil involved the use of a large linked dataset of hospital and mortality statistics to study stroke epidemiology in England. Analysis of data on more than 1 million stroke events and about 400 000 stroke deaths in England revealed a 50% reduction in stroke death rate and a 30% reduction in the number of new strokes between 2000 and 2011. Olena’s research showed that the observed dramatic reduction in stroke mortality was largely due to improvements in treatment and secondary prevention of stroke, while primary prevention and control of risk factors made a smaller contribution of about 20% in men and 35% in women. Another important finding of her research was an increase in stroke incidence rates in young adults under 55 years, which contrasts to the overall reduction in stroke incidence rates.

Olena’s expertise lies in using datasets of routine hospital statistics and mortality data to conduct large epidemiological studies.  Olena collaborates with researchers and clinicians in Oxford, and other institutions nationally and internationally, to find answers to clinical questions using disease association studies.

Olena is involved in an international study using data from England, Australia, New Zealand and Canada to compare trends in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease mortality and morbidity. She has published over 20 peer-reviewed papers and presented at numerous conferences, including the International and European Stroke Conferences. Olena also teaches the BDI course on Hospital Episode Statistics.