Primary Care & Health Sciences

John was awarded undergraduate (First Class) and Masters Degrees in Psychology from the University of Dundee. He moved to Manchester to study with Alan Silman for a PhD at the (then) Arthritis Research Campaign’s Epidemiology Unit. John is a Reader in Epidemiology at the Centre and holds Honorary posts at the Manchester University and Aberdeen University. Previously he has held Lecturer and Senior Lecturer posts at the Arthritis Research Campaign’s Epidemiology Unit, University of Manchester.

John leads the population-based research in the North Staffordshire Osteoarthritis Project (NorStOP), a large population-based prospective cohort study that aims to identify predictors of the cause, course and consequences of musculoskeletal pain in older people.

He is currently developing new programmes of work that focus on diffuse pain syndromes in older people. These programmes seek to develop age-appropriate pain assessment tools, describe syndrome epidemiology, identify causal mechanisms, and develop appropriate treatments.

External collaborations include studies of basic pain processing mechanisms in older people, identifying hormonal factors that influence pain reporting, and population studies to identify pain susceptibility genes.

Examples of recently funded grants are:

• National Institute for Health Research “Multisite pain and falls in older people”

• Arthritis Research UK “Epidemiology Unit Centre Grant”

• Medical Research Council “The feasibility of a population based study of CFS, IBS and CWP”

• Arthritis Research Campaign Clinical Trials Collaboration “The MUSICIANS STUDY”

• European Federation if IASP Chapters/Grünenthal “Investigating the role of the pain modulating DREAM pathway genes in chronic musculoskeletal pain”