Sophie Cole

Sophie joined the Economics of Population Health Research Centre in November 2023. Her research applies health economic and quantitative methods to questions in health policy, health inequalities, and the use of routinely collected data.

Her work focuses on measuring differences in health, healthcare use, and outcomes across populations, with an interest in how individual-level data can be used to understand inequalities. Sophie’s research has examined patient outcomes following joint replacement, chronic pain, rare disease, vaccination uptake, and the relationship between health and socioeconomic inequality.

Prior to her current position, Sophie completed a National Institute of Health and Care Research pre-doctoral fellowship at the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS), University of Oxford. This involved investigating the health dimensions of individuals with rare chronic diseases, such as X-linked hypophosphaetemia and Osteogenesis imperfecta, with a particular focus on mental health.

She began working at NDORMS in September 2019, after completing an MSc in Health Economics at the University of York. During that time, Sophie completed a thesis on the effects of maternal and paternal mental health during pregnancy on child outcomes.

Sophie is currently the Chair of the Early Mid-Career Network and an Oxford Population Health researcher representative for the Medical Sciences Division Research Staff Forum.