Behavioural Medicine and Mental Health Team, Department of Primary Care Clinical Sciences, University of Birmingham
Principal Investigator at a randomised, controlled trial: “Testing the feasibility of nicotine assisted reduction to stop in General Practice; The RedGP Study.” Recent evidence suggest that gradual withdrawn or even permanent reduction from cigarettes would bring net benefits to public health. The aim of the project is to test implementation of smoking reduction programme in patients with smoking-related chronic diseases that are reviewed annually as part of the UK pay-for-performance system and also to examine health benefits of the programme in the population setting.
January 2008 – present (Honorary contract)
Coronel Institute of Occupational Health, Amsterdam Medical Centre, The Netherlands
Co-investigator at the intervention that aims to enhance return to work of cancer patients by improving communication between employer, occupational health physician, and treating clinician.
August 2007 – December 2009
Cancer and Chronic Disease Team, Department of Primary Care Clinical Sciences, University of Birmingham
Involved with the studies of early detection and prevention of colorectal cancer: 1) Evaluating the added benefit of measuring an enzyme called matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9) as a part of colorectal cancer screening, 2) Factors that affect uptake of bowel cancer screening 3) Symptom clusters that best predict neoplasia of colon cancer
June 2002 – July 2007
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland
Researcher in the research project: “Cancer Survivors in work life.” Involved with all three parts of the project: 1) The qualitative study, conducted 26 thematic interviews of cancer survivors of working age. Recruited patients through Helsinki City Hospital and Finnish Cancer Patients’ Association. The results of the study were later used to develop a questionnaire for: 2) Case-Control study that consisted of 850 people with cancer and 1,100 controls. The patients were identified on behalf of the Helsinki City Hospital. Controls without the history of cancer with the same age and gender distribution as the cases were identified through the population registry. The Case-Control study was multinational as it was conducted in the collaboration with other Nordic countries (i.e. NOWCO-Group). In the third part of the project, the Population-based study, combined data of cancer registry and population census files were used to compare employment status of people diagnosed with cancer to that of the age and gender matched controls.
Peer-reviewed articles
Taskila T, De Boer A, van Dijk F, Verbeek J. Fatigue and its correlates in cancer patients who had returned to work – A cohort study. Psycho-Oncology 2010 Sep 5 (Epub ahead of print).
Tamminga SJ, de Boer AGEM, Verbeek JHAM, Taskila T, Frings-Dresen MHW: Enhancing return-to-work in cancer patients, development of an intervention and design of a randomised controlled trial BMC Cancer 2010, 10:345
Taskila T, Wilson S, Damery S, Roalfe A, Redman V, Ismail T, Hobbs R. Factors affecting attitudes toward colorectal cancer screening in the primary care population Br J Cancer. 2009 Jul 21;101(2):250-5.
De Boer A, Taskila T, Ojajarvi A, van Dijk FJH, Verbeek JH. Cancer survivors and unemployment – A meta-analyses and meta-regression. JAMA 2009, 7:301, 753-762.
Wilson S, Taskila T, Ismail T. Stocken DD, Martin A, Redman V, Wakelam M, Perry I and Hobbs R: Establishing the added benefit of measuring MMP9 in FOB positive patients as a part of the Wolverhampton colorectal cancer screening programme. BMC Cancer 2009, 9:36 (28 Jan 2009).
Book Chapters
Verbeek JH, De Boer A, Taskila T. Primary and occupational health care providers. Feurstein M (edit.), Cancer survivorship and work, Springer, New York 2009.
Systematic Reviews
De Boer A, Taskila T, Tamminga S, Frings-Dresen MH, Feurstein M, Verbeek JH. Interventions to enhance return-to-work for cancer patients [Review]. The Cochrane Library 2011, Issue 2. The Cochrane Collaboration; Wiley & Sons.
Treweek S, Mitchell E, Pitkethly M, Cook J, Kjeldstrøm M, Taskila T, Johansen M, Sullivan F, Wilson S, Jackson C, Jones R. Strategies to improve recruitment to randomised controlled trials [Review]. The Cochrane Library 2010, Issue 2. The Cochrane Collaboration; Wiley & Sons.