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Professor Noel Mc Carthy

Professor of Population Health Medicine (Public Health & Primary Care)

 NOEL.MCCARTHY@tcd.ie

 


Biography

Noel McCarthy is Professor of Population Health Medicine at Trinity College Dublin. His principal research focus is on infectious disease epidemiology with broader interests applying research methods to public health problems. His teaching goal is to facilitate students to learn by thinking and reflective experience, whether that be specific and technical such as how to think as an epidemiologist, or more general such as reflecting on how power structures in a society affect the distribution of health and wellbeing. He qualified in medicine from Trinity in 1989, completed general internal medicine training Dublin and Cork before moving into infectious disease and public health and working internationally. This included refugee healthcare work in Africa with Médecins Sans Frontières, microbiology (St James's), field epidemiology training in Sweden, and work at the Food Safety Authority of Ireland before training in public health in the UK specialising in communicable disease control and infectious disease epidemiology with clinical posts as a consultant in communicable disease control and National Infection Service epidemiologist. Research training included an MSc (Medical Statistics) at the University of London and Wellcome Trust Fellowship supported DPhil at the University of Oxford integrating population genetic analyses in the epidemiology of bacterial disease (Campylobacter) supervised by Martin Maiden. Academic posts have been as a research fellow at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford and Professor of Communicable Disease Control Epidemiology at Warwick Medical School.

Research Projects

 Quantifying the transmission routes of gastroenteritis in Pakistan and developing targeted interventions
 NIHR Health Potection Unit in Gastrointestinal Infection
 NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Genomics and Enabling Data

Representations

Details Date
Chair. National Serosurveillance Programme Steering Group (2021-). October 2021-

Languages

Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
English Fluent Fluent Fluent
French Medium Medium Medium
Swedish Medium Medium Medium

Memberships

Membership of Professional Institutions, Associations, Societies

Details Date From Date To
Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland July 2021
Member of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine (England) June 2000
Member of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland June 1992
Auguste, PE; Mistry, H; McCarthy, ND; Sutcliffe, P; Clarke, AE., Cost-effectiveness of testing for latent tuberculosis infection in people with HIV , AIDS, 36, (1), 2022, p1 - 9, Journal Article, IN_PRESS
Cavallaro M, Moiz H, Keeling MJ, McCarthy ND., Contrasting factors associated with COVID-19-related ICU admission and death outcomes in hospitalised patients by means of Shapley values., PLoS computational biology, 17, (6), 2021, pe1009121 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Mytton OT, McCarthy N, Watson J, Whiting P., Interpreting a lateral flow SARS-CoV-2 antigen test., BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 373, 2021, pn1411 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Brueggemann AB, Jansen van Rensburg MJ, Shaw D, McCarthy ND, Jolley KA, Maiden MCJ, van der Linden MPG, Amin-Chowdhury Z, Bennett DE, Borrow R, Brandileone MC, Broughton K, Campbell R, Cao B, Casanova C, Choi EH, Chu YW, Clark SA, Claus H, Coelho J, Corcoran M, Cottrell S, Cunney RJ, Dalby T, Davies H, de Gouveia L, Deghmane AE, Demczuk W, Desmet S, Drew RJ, du Plessis M, Erlendsdottir H, Fry NK, Fuursted K, Gray SJ, Henriques-Normark B, Hale T, Hilty M, Hoffmann S, Humphreys H, Ip M, Jacobsson S, Johnston J, Kozakova J, Kristinsson KG, Krizova P, Kuch A, Ladhani SN, Lâm TT, Lebedova V, Lindholm L, Litt DJ, Martin I, Martiny D, Mattheus W, McElligott M, Meehan M, Meiring S, Mölling P, Morfeldt E, Morgan J, Mulhall RM, Muñoz-Almagro C, Murdoch DR, Murphy J, Musilek M, Mzabi A, Perez-Argüello A, Perrin M, Perry M, Redin A, Roberts R, Roberts M, Rokney A, Ron M, Scott KJ, Sheppard CL, Siira L, Skoczy"ska A, Sloan M, Slotved HC, Smith AJ, Song JY, Taha MK, Toropainen M, Tsang D, Vainio A, van Sorge NM, Varon E, Vlach J, Vogel U, Vohrnova S, von Gottberg A, Zanella RC, Zhou F., Changes in the incidence of invasive disease due to Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, and Neisseria meningitidis during the COVID-19 pandemic in 26 countries and territories in the Invasive Respiratory Infection Surveillance Initiative: a prospective analysis of surveillance data., Lancet Digit Health, 3, (6), 2021, pe360-e370 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Didelot X, Kendall M, Xu Y, White PJ, McCarthy N., Genomic Epidemiology Analysis of Infectious Disease Outbreaks Using TransPhylo., Curr Protoc, 1, (2), 2021, pe60 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Grove A, Osokogu O, Al-Khudairy L, Mehrabian A, Zanganeh M, Brown A, Court R, Taylor-Phillips S, Uthman OA, McCarthy N, Kumar S, Clarke A., Association between vitamin D supplementation or serum vitamin D level and susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection or COVID-19 including clinical course, morbidity and mortality outcomes? A systematic review., BMJ Open, 11, (5), 2021, pe043737 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
, Two centuries of immunisation in the UK (part 1), Arch Dis Child, 2020, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
, Two centuries of immunisation in the UK (part II), Arch Dis Child, 2020, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
, Analysis of individual patient data to describe the incubation period distribution of Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli, Epidemiol Infect, 2019, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
, Are food exposures obtained through commercial market panels representative of the general population? Implications for outbreak investigations, Epidemiology and Infection, 2019, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
  

Page 1 of 14
Creane, D., Hayes, C., O Ciardha, D., Smith, S. M., Campbell, A. & Mc Carthy, N., Health data to support local communities, 1, Trinity College Dublin, January 2024, 2024, p1 - 12, Notes: [Demonstration of marked disparity in presence of asthma among residents of a housing complex and those living nearby. This is relevant for housing policy and the importance of granular health data to identify health needs.], Report, PUBLISHED
Campylobacter in, editor(s)Deng X, den Bakker HC, Hendriksen RS , Applied Genomics of Foodborne Pathogens. , Switzerland, Springer International Publishing,, 2017, pp127 - 143, [McCarthy, ND.], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Clinical Epidemiology in, editor(s)Abubakar I, Stagg HR, Cohen T, Rodrigues LC , Infectious Disease Epidemiology. , Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp119 - 132, [McCarthy ND, Smith A.], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Molecular Epidemiology of Campylobacter Species in, editor(s)Nachamkin I, Szymanski CM, Blaser MJ , Campylobacter, Washington, ASM Press, 2008, pp191 - 211, [ON SLW, McCarthy ND, Miller WG, Gilpin BJ], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED

  

Research Interests

Description Of Research Interests

Research interests have focused on the integration of pathogen genetic data in infectious disease epidemiology, developing and applying novel epidemiological approaches in communicable disease control, using routinely collected data for research, and a broad range of work linking research into public health practice. Research contributions in these areas are outlined below. The development of an approach to source attribution of pathogens to zoonotic reservoirs applying population genetic algorithms using the example of Campylobacter infection [PMC2063414] with subsequent validation [PMC3988352] and application to human infection [PMC2916502]. This has become a standard approach as recently reviewed [PMC6820127] including in national monitoring projects in the UK. Integrating bacterial genome sequence data with other epidemiological data including developing and validating core genome multi-locus sequence typing [PMC5483910] for outbreak detection in population level surveillance [PMC3719633], ad hoc application studies such as the emergence of an STEC clone [PMC6256402](7) investigating care setting streptococcal [PMC4880081] and milk-borne Campylobacter [PMC4551004] outbreaks, population studies of the distribution of TB transmission [PMC4571080], and the ecology of Campylobacter as it relates to human infection [PMC3487483]. Reviewing the use of approaches using the multi-locus sequence typing paradigm in epidemiology [PMC3980634]. Developing novel epidemiological approaches in applied infectious disease epidemiology such as: describing case-case comparisons based on bacterial subtypes [PMID: 10480708] which is now widely used (a "case-case" and "infection" search in Google Scholar returns over 9,000 items); applying classical epidemiological studies to the food supply chain in outbreaks [PMC6053626]; validating temporospatial approaches to detecting smaller outbreaks [PMID: 24690264]; the use of internet panels for controls in outbreak investigation [PMC5848756]; and the use of modelling approaches to evaluate disease control interventions [PMID: 21859502]. Diverse collaborative work includes contributions to vaccine trials [PMID: 26165918], evaluation of the herd immunity effects of childhood vaccination [PMID: 27955789] with direct policy implications for adult vaccination policy and basic science work on Campylobacter [PMC18403712].