Richard Doll Seminar: The trials of a statistician – Overcoming some statistical challenges to deliver robust results from randomised controlled trials

The involvement of a statistician at all stages of a randomised controlled trial from concept to dissemination is crucial to the success of a study, but how does a statistician influence the direction of a trial? Using trials she has worked on as examples, Pollyanna will present some of the statistical and methodological challenges she has addressed as a statistician working on trials to ensure the delivery of robust and reliable results.

 Pollyanna Hardy graduated from the University of Sussex with a BSc in Mathematics, and later an MSc in Statistics from the University of Sheffield. She has previously worked as a medical statistician at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, NPEU CTU and Birmingham CTU. She is now Clinical Trialist and Director of the NPEU CTU. She has 25 years’ experience as a statistician and methodologist on around 40 randomised controlled trials in a range of disease areas.