Dr Alice Sitch PhD, MSc, BSc (Hons), PCAP, CStat, FHEA

Dr Alice Sitch

Institute of Applied Health Research
Lecturer in Medical Statistics

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 4428
Email
a.j.sitch@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@alicesitch
View my research portal
Address
Public Health Building
Institute of Applied Health Research
College of Medical and Dental Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Alice Sitch is a Lecturer working in the Institute of Applied Health Research and a member of the Biostatistics, Evidence Synthesis and Test Evaluation (BESaTE) research group.

Since joining the University in 2009, Alice has become involved in many exciting projects allowing her to collaborate with others in the BESaTE team and many other researchers at the University of Birmingham and beyond.

Alice’s main research interests are in the area of designing and evaluating monitoring tests and studies of biological variability.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Medical Statistics, University of Birmingham, 2019
  • Post-graduate certificate in Academic Practice, University of Birmingham, 2017
  • MSc in Statistics, University of Sheffield, 2009
  • BSc (Hons) in Mathematics, University of Sheffield, 2008
  • Royal Statistical Society Chartered Statistician
  • Fellow of Higher Education Academy

Biography

Alice began working with the Biostatistics group within the Institute of Applied Health Research at the University of Birmingham as a Research Fellow in October 2009 and later became a Lecturer in Medical Statistics.  

Alice is involved with many exciting research projects. Her work is diverse, covering methodological problems, test research and a variety of public health issues.  The focus of her research is test evaluation, specifically the use of tests to monitor progressive and recurrent disease and studies of biological variability. 

Alice enjoys teaching and interacting with students, with her responsibilities spanning many courses. Predominately, her teaching duties involve communicating statistical ideas to a non-statistical audience. Alice is involved with teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate students and leads the statistics module on the Medicine and Surgery (MBChB) Graduate Entry Course (GEC).

Teaching

Research

The focus of Alice’s research is the use of repeated testing to monitor disease progression or recurrence and the use of biological variability studies to provide evidence to guide the use of monitoring tests.

Her work in the area of monitoring stems from her involvement in the methodology work stream of the NIHR programme grant Evaluating the benefits for patients and the NHS of new and existing biological fluid biomarkers in liver and renal disease. Alice is also involved in a primary study (eGFR-C) looking at estimation using creatinine and cystatin C for monitoring disease progression in patients with stage 3 chronic kidney disease.  

In other test evaluation work, Alice is the study statistician for the NIHR HTA study Prognostic Value of Interferon Gamma Release Assays in predicting active tuberculosis among individuals with, or at risk of, latent tuberculosis infection (PREDICT); the Wellcome Trust Innovation Challenge Fund supported study Real-time Adaptive Predictive Indicator of Deterioration (RAPID) which uses Formula One technology to monitor children in intensive care in real time; and, two NIHR Research for Patient Benefit funded pilot studies investigating home monitoring of cystic fibrosis and an alert system for the early detection of acute kidney injury. 

Through collaboration with other academics and clinicians, Alice has been part of many research projects.  These include the NIHR global project in COPD Breathe Well, a MRC funded project Pathfinder, and a NIHR PHR funded project ABA.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Dickens, A, Fitzmaurice, D, Adab, P, Sitch, A, Riley, RD, Enocson, A & Jordan, R 2019, 'Accuracy of Vitalograph lung monitor as a screening test for COPD in primary care', NPJ Primary Care Respiratory Medicine.

Keene , SJ, Jordan, R, Franssen, FME, de Vries, F, Martin, J, Sitch, A, Turner, A, Dickens, A, Fitzmaurice, D & Adab, P 2019, 'External validation of the updated ADO score in COPD patients from the Birmingham COPD cohort', International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, vol. 14, pp. 2395—2407. https://doi.org/10.2147/COPD.S212381

Clarke, J, Ingram, J, Johnson , D, Tricky, H, Dombrowski, SU, Sitch, A, Dykes , F, Feltham, M, MacArthur, C, Roberts, T, Hoddinott, P & Jolly, K 2019, 'The Assets-based infant feeding help Before and After birth (ABA) intervention for improving breastfeeding initiation and continuation: feasibility study results', Maternal and Child Nutrition.

Thomas, ME, Abdelaziz, T, Perkins, G, Sitch, A, Baharani, J & Temple, R 2019, 'The acute kidney outreach to prevent deterioration and death – a large pilot study for a cluster randomised trial', Nephrology, Dialysis, Transplantation.

Lee, KC, Bamford, A, Gardiner, A, Agovino, A, Ter Horst, B, Bishop, J, Sitch, A, Grover, L, Logan, A & Moiemen, N 2019, 'Investigating the intra- and inter-rater reliability of a panel of subjective and objective burn scar measurement tools', Burns, vol. 45, no. 6, pp. 1311-1324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2019.02.002

Lambe, T, Adab, P, Jordan, R, Sitch, A, Enocson, A, Jolly, K, Marsh, J, Riley, RD, Miller, M, Cooper, BG, Turner, A, Ayres, J, Stockley, RA, Greenfield, S, Siebert, S, Daley, A, Cheng, K, Fitzmaurice, D & Jowett, S 2019, 'A model-based evaluation of the long-term cost-effectiveness of systematic case-finding for COPD in primary care', Thorax, vol. 74, pp. 730-739. https://doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2018-212148

Chua, WWL, Easter, C, Guasch, E, Sitch, A, Casadei, B, Crijns, HJGM, Haase, D, Hatem, S, Kääb, S, Mont, L, Schotten, U, Sinner, MF, Hemming, K, Deeks, J, Kirchhof, P & Fabritz, L 2019, 'Development and external validation of predictive models for prevalent and recurrent atrial fibrillation: a protocol for the analysis of the CATCH ME combined dataset', BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, vol. 19, no. 1, 120. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12872-019-1105-4

Clarke, J, Ingram, J, Johnson, D, Thomson, G, Trickey, H, Dombrowski, SU, Sitch, A, Dykes, F, Feltham, M, MacArthur, C, Roberts, T, Hoddinott, P & Jolly, K 2019, 'Assets-based infant feeding help before and after birth: a randomised controlled feasibility trial for improving breastfeeding initiation and continuation', Public Health Research.

Rowe, C, Sitch, A, Barratt, J, Brettell, E, Cockwell, P, Dalton, N, Deeks, J, Eaglestone, G, Pellatt-Higgins, T, Kalra, PA, Khunti, K, Loud, F, Morris, F, Ottridge, R, Stevens, PE, Sharpe, CC, Sutton, A, Taal, MW, Lamb, EJ & eGFR-C study group 2019, 'Biological variation of measured and estimated glomerular filtration rate in patients with chronic kidney disease', Kidney International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.kint.2019.02.021

Dasgupta, I, Thomas, GN, Clarke, J, Sitch, A, Martin, J, Bieber, B, Hecking, M, Pisoni, R, Port, F, Robinson, B & Rayner, H 2019, 'Associations between hemodialysis facility practices to manage fluid volume and intradialytic hypotension and patient outcomes', Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, vol. 14, no. 2. https://doi.org/10.2215/CJN.08240718

Mason, F, Farley, A, Pallan, M, Sitch, A, Easter, C & Daley, A 2018, 'Effectiveness of a brief behavioural intervention to prevent weight gain over the Christmas holiday period: randomised controlled trial', BMJ, vol. 363, k4867. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4867

Jolly, K, Sidhu, M, Bates, E, Majothi, S, Sitch, A, Bayliss, S, Kim, HJS & Jordan, R 2018, 'Systematic review of the effectiveness of community-based self-management interventions among primary care COPD patients', NPJ Primary Care Respiratory Medicine, vol. 28, 44. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41533-018-0111-9

Abubakar, I, Drobniewski, F, Southern, J, Sitch, A, Jackson, C, Lipman, M, Deeks, J, Griffiths, C, Bothamley, G, Lynn, W, Burgess, H, Mann, B, Imran, A, Sridhar, S, Tsou, C-Y, Nikolayevskyy, V, Rees-Roberts, M, Whitworth, H, Kon, OM, Haldar, P, Kunst, H, Anderson, S, Hayward, A, Watson, J, Milburn, H, Lalvani, A & PREDICT 2018, 'Prognostic value of interferon-γ release assays and tuberculin skin test in predicting the development of active tuberculosis (UK PREDICT TB): a prospective cohort study', The Lancet Infectious Diseases, vol. 18, no. 10, pp. 1077-1087. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(18)30355-4

Abubakar, I, Lalvani, A, Southern, J, Sitch, A, Jackson, C, Onyimadu, O, Lipman, M, Deeks, J, Griffiths, C, Bothamley, G, Kon, OM, Hayward, A, Lord, J & Drobniewski, F 2018, 'Two interferon gamma release assays for predicting active tuberculosis: the UK PREDICT TB prognostic test study', Health Technology Assessment, vol. 22, no. 56. https://doi.org/10.3310/hta22560

Selby, PJ, Deeks, J, Dinnes, J & Sitch, A 2018, 'Methods for the evaluation of biomarkers in patients with kidney and liver diseases: multicentre research programme including ELUCIDATE RCT', Programme Grants for Applied Research, vol. 6, no. 3. https://doi.org/10.3310/pgfar06030

View all publications in research portal