Pioneering biostatistician appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British

Sheila’s research has significantly contributed to public health through a series of record-linkage studies, focusing on hard-to-reach populations to make discoveries about public health and monitor the impact of public health policies.

She took a prominent role in the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) COVID-19 Taskforce, campaigning for better evidence on diagnostic testing and proper evaluation of the effects of alternative policies.

Part of the Infected Blood Inquiry, she was a founding member of the Statistics Expert Group in 2019 and continued contributing to their work during the pandemic. She co-directed the work underlying the final Report from the Statistics Expert Group published in 2022, using extensive statistical analysis and modelling.

Sheila worked for the MRC Biostatistics Unit (BSU) for over 35 years, becoming a Programme Leader in 1996. Sheila, a Scot, demitted office on St Andrews Day 2015, but has continued as a Visiting Scholar for the BSU, making significant contributions to the research and public understanding of medical statistics.

There have been many notable achievements throughout Dame Sheila’s career. In 1991, she began a quarter-century as ‘Biostatistician behind Bars’ with high-volunteer rate Willing Anonymous Salivary HIV/Hepatitis C Virus (WASH-C) surveillance studies  in Scottish prisons which showed that a third of adult male prisoners had a history of injection drug use and that, prior to methadone maintenance as healthcare standard, half had injected inside prison; reduced to one-quarter by 2010. Prison rites in the 1990s included that one in 60 first-time adult prisoners started to inject inside prison. Those same studies were used to show that random mandatory drugs testing of prisoners would severely under-estimate the inside use of heroin (because heroin stays in the urine for only 2-3 days and inside-injectors averaged only 6 inside-injections in the past 4 weeks).

Record linkage studies in Scotland were central to Sheila’s work on the late sequelae of Hepatitis C virus infection and on the morbidity and mortality of opioid addiction. Her MRC research group first quantified the very high risk of drugs-related death in the fortnight after prison-release, in response to which Sheila and colleagues proposed a prison-based randomized controlled trial of naloxone, the opioid antagonist, for prisoners-on-release who had a history of heroin injection.

Sheila’s appointment as DBE recognises her many and varied notable achievements, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she played a major role in the RSS COVID-19 Taskforce. Sheila drafted a statement on two key statistical methods - record-linkage and random-day-visits - by which to glean intelligence about the performance of Test, Trace and Isolate such as about the actual duration of, and adherence to, quarantine by at-risk close contacts. She also initiated the Taskforce statement on testing of secondary pupils on their return to school in March 2021.

Sheila also proposed, in June 2020, and was a member of, the RSS Working Group on Diagnostic Tests which reported in June 2021 making recommendations on matters of study-design, regulation and transparency. She also served on UK Health Security Agency’s Testing Initiatives Evaluation Board (TIEB).

The critical work Sheila undertook for the Infected Blood Inquiry during the pandemic was to ensure that two types of record-linkage follow-up study (on survival status at 31 December 2019; and cause of death) had been approved and the necessary linked data were ready for analysis by April 2022 when needed by its Statistics Expect Group.

Sheila said:

Of course, I am thrilled to be appointed a Dame. Most importantly, dual recognitions are accorded: to the importance of statistical science in evaluating public health policies. And to hard-to-reach populations, whose health really matters. Research, such as by record-linkage, can make discoveries. When acted upon, these discoveries may lead to notable improvements and make a real difference: even in the ‘forgotten epidemic’ of opioid-related deaths.

Sheila’s appointment as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire is a truly outstanding achievement. Colleagues and friends at the BSU wish her many congratulations.