Thomas Littlejohns
BSc, MSc, PhD
Senior Epidemiologist
Thomas is a module lead for the Principles of Epidemiology module as part of the MSc in Global Health Science and Epidemiology.
He joined the Translational Epidemiology Unit (TEU) in 2021 to work as a senior epidemiologist. His main area of interest is investigating risk factors for dementia, with a particular focus on research that produces translatable findings with a public health benefit. This includes identifying modifiable factors that can be potentially targeted for dementia prevention.
Thomas is also involved in research which addresses similar questions for non-dementia outcomes, in particular, cancer, cardiovascular disease and other common chronic diseases.
He primarily uses the UK Biobank dataset, a population-based cohort of half a million participants with a diversity of phenotypic and genetic data measured. Thomas is also interested in using other cohorts to either replicate or complement analyses conducted using UK Biobank.
Before joining TEU, Thomas worked as an epidemiologist for Oxford Population Health-based UK Biobank scientific team between 2014-2021. Prior to joining the department, he completed a PhD at the University of Exeter on hormonal risk factors for late-onset dementia.
Recent publications
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Machine learning derived retinal pigment score from ophthalmic imaging shows ethnicity is not biology
Journal article
Rajesh AE. et al, (2025), Nature Communications, 16
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Autoencoder-based phenotyping of ophthalmic images highlights genetic loci influencing retinal morphology and provides informative biomarkers
Journal article
Sergouniotis PI. et al, (2025), Bioinformatics, 41
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Joint association of genetic risk and accelerometer-based step count with cardiovascular disease: a UK-Biobank cohort study
Preprint
Birmpili P. et al, (2025)
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A hypothetical intervention on the use of hearing aids for the risk of dementia in people with hearing loss in UK Biobank.
Journal article
Mur J. et al, (2024), Am J Epidemiol
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Role of age and exposure duration in the association between metabolic syndrome and risk of incident dementia: a prospective cohort study.
Journal article
Qureshi D. et al, (2024), Lancet Healthy Longev, 5