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Elizabeth Orton

Professor of Public Health, Director of Lifespan and Population Health, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences

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Biography

Prof Orton (Liz) is the Director of the Unit of Lifespan and Population Health in the School of Medicine, and the Chief Investigator of the NIHR PHIRST-Light team.

Her academic career began in the field of hearing research at the University of Keele where she completed a PhD in 1996 investigating the cellular mechanisms of sensory hair cell degeneration and repair. After a short-term lectureship in neuroscience at the University of Sheffield she moved to the Loeb Research Institute, Canada, as a postdoctoral fellow to study the genetics of inner ear development and then continued this work at the MRC Institute of Hearing Research at the University of Nottingham.

In 2003 she joined the National Newborn Hearing Screening Programme where she established the quality assurance systems for neonatal hearing screening across England.

In 2008 she began public health specialty training in the East Midlands and in 2010 was appointed a part-time lectureship in public health in the Division of Primary Care at the University of Nottingham, working as part of the Injury Epidemiology and Prevention group. She is now a Professor (University of Nottingham) and Consultant in Public Health (Leicestershire County Council).

Her research interests centre around injury epidemiology and prevention, including intervention studies, systematic reviews, large data analysis and implementation research.

Expertise Summary

Keywords:

Public health, primary care databases, STATA, service evaluation, injury epidemiology

Teaching Summary

Prof Orton teaches on the Health and Society (Sociology) module on the MPH programme, supervises research dissertations and supports the academic development of doctors in training wanting to… read more

Research Summary

Prof Orton is the Chief Investigator for the NIHR PHIRST-Light programme. Her main area of research is injury epidemiology and how the frequency of injury has changed over time and differs between… read more

Selected Publications

  • LEWIS, M.A., QUINT, E., GLAZIER, A.M., FUCHS, H., HRABÉ DE ANGELIS, M., LANGFORD, C., VAN DONGEN, S., ABREU-GOODGER, C., PIIPARI, M., REDSHAW, N., DALMAY, T., MORENO-PELAYO, M.A., ENRIGHT, A.J. and STEEL, K.P., 2009. An ENU-induced mutation of a miRNA associated with progressive hearing loss in mice Nature Genetics. 41(5), 614-618
  • BOSMAN, ERIKA A, QUINT, ELIZABETH, FUCHS, HELMUT, HRABÉ DE ANGELIS, MARTIN and STEEL, KAREN P, 2009. Catweasel mice: a novel role for Six1 in sensory patch development and a model for branchio-oto-renal syndrome. Developmental biology. 328(2), 285-96
  • BECK, C.R., MCKENZIE, B.C., HASHIM, A.B., HARRIS, R.C., ZANUZDANA, A., AGBOADO, G., ORTON, E., BÉCHARD-EVANS, L., MORGAN, G., STEVENSON, C., WESTON, R., MUKAIGAWARA, M., ENSTONE, J., AUGUSTINE, G., BUTT, M., KIM, S., PULESTON, R., DABKE, G., HOWARD, R., O'BOYLE, J., O'BRIEN, M., AHYOW, L., DENNESS, H., FARMER, S., FIGUREROA, J., FISHER, P., GREAVES, F., HAROON M, HAROON, S., HIRD, C., ISBA, R., ISHOLA, D.A., KERAC, M., PARISH, V., ROBERTS, J., ROSSER, J., THEAKER, S., WALLACE, D., WIGGLESWORTH, N., LINGARD, L., VINOGRADOVA, Y., HORIUCHI, H., PENALVER, J. and NGUYEN-VAN-TAM, J.S., 2011. Influenza vaccination for immunocompromised patients: systematic review and meta-analysis from a public health policy perspective PLoS One. 6(12), e29249
  • SMITH, A, ZHANG, J, GUAY, D, QUINT, E, JOHNSON, A and AKIMENKO, M A, 2008. Gene expression analysis on sections of zebrafish regenerating fins reveals limitations in the whole-mount in situ hybridization method. Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists. 237(2), 417-25
  • Director of Lifespan and Population Health, School of Medicine, 2023-present
  • Head of Division of Primary Care, 2020-2021
  • Faculty of Public Health- Fellow
  • Spanish Neonatal Hearing Screening conferences- Invited speaker 2008 and 2009
  • Health Education England East Midlands clinical academic rep for Public Health
  • Previous external examiner for the University of Birmingham MPH programme
  • Faculty of Public Health Diplomate exam examiner

Prof Orton teaches on the Health and Society (Sociology) module on the MPH programme, supervises research dissertations and supports the academic development of doctors in training wanting to undertake academic placements.

Current Research

Prof Orton is the Chief Investigator for the NIHR PHIRST-Light programme. Her main area of research is injury epidemiology and how the frequency of injury has changed over time and differs between people of different ages in the UK. She uses a range of research methods to investigate the factors that influence injury, including alcohol harm (excessive consumption, violence related to alcohol, parental alcohol misuse), and other social factors.

She is currently involved with researching factors falls prevention in older adult and injury prevention in pre-school children.

She is also a Consultant in Public Health.

Past Research

Previously worked in developmental biology, identifying genes responsible for congenital deafness and repair in the inner ear following ototoxicity.

Future Research

She is interested in studying the implementation of evidence-based interventions into practice.

School of Medicine

University of Nottingham
Medical School
Nottingham, NG7 2UH

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