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Professor Stephen Bremner

Professor Stephen Bremner (BSc MSc PhD FHEA)

Professor of Medical Statistics
E: S.Bremner@bsms.ac.uk
Location: Watson Building, Dept. of Primary Care & Public Health, University of Brighton Falmer Campus, BN1 9PH

Areas of expertise: Medical statistics, epidemiology, clinical trials

Research areas: Cardiology, Geriatrics, Global Health, Health Services Research, Hepatology, HIV & Sexual Health, Infection, Mental health, Oncology, Paediatrics & neonatal health, Primary care, Public Health, Surgery

Other relevant positions: Departmental Research Lead, Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Preferred gender pronouns: him/his/he

Biography

Stephen is Professor of Medical Statistics at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. After completing a BSc in mathematical sciences (University of Strathclyde, 1995) and an MSc in medical statistics (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 1996), he spent three years as a statistician at St. George’s Hospital Medical School, London, working on studies of the short term effects of air pollution on health. Following a year in Sao Paulo, Brazil, conducting data analysis in air pollution epidemiology and advising at the Brazilian Cochrane Centre, Stephen returned to St. George's in 2000 to conduct further research in air pollution and to undertake his PhD in primary care epidemiology.

In 2007, employed as a statistician at the Healthcare Commission in London, Stephen analysed Hospital Episode Statistics and data from the NHS Surveys Programme. Between 2008 and 2015, he was a lecturer at the Pragmatic Clinical Trials Unit, Queen Mary University of London, where he was also seconded to the Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry, Newham Centre for Mental Health.

Stephen joined BSMS in 2015 as a senior lecturer and has been closely involved with the development of the Brighton and Sussex Clinical Trials Unit (BSCTU) which achieved full registration status with the UK Clinical Research Collaboration in 2023. Stephen is also a senior statistician for the NIHR Centre for Global Health Research in Neglected Tropical Diseases at BSMS and a member of the Pre-Sponsorship Review Panel, run by the Joint Clinical Research Office. He is an Editor-in-Chief for the BioMed Central journal, Pilot and Feasibility Studies.

Research

Stephen was awarded his PhD in 2007, having investigated early-life risk factors for childhood hayfever by conducting matched case-control studies, nested in birth cohorts defined in two large scale primary care databases of electronic patient records.

His current principal research interests centre on the design and analysis of pragmatic randomised controlled trials of complex interventions in community healthcare settings. Pragmatic trials evaluate the effectiveness of interventions in real-practice settings. He also has a strong interest in the rigorous design, analysis and reporting of pilot and feasibility studies i.e. research conducted to establish whether a future large-scale study is possible. Stephen applies various research designs across a wide range of medical specialties and allied healthcare disciplines.

One example of a pragmatic trial Stephen is the senior trial statistician and co-applicant on is the NIHR Health Technology Assessment funded "Palliative Long-term abdominal drains versus repeated drainage in untreatable ascites due to advanced cirrhosis: a randomised controlled trial (REDUCe 2 Study)" led by hepatologist Professor Sumita Verma (BSMS) and run by the BSCTU.

Teaching

Stephen teaches a session on statistical concepts in trial design on the MSc module, MDM112 Clinical Trials Management, University of Brighton.

Selected publications

Fundaun, J., Ridehalgh, C., Koushesh, S., Novak, A., Tejos-Bravo, M., Bremner, S., . . . Schmid, A. (2025). The presence and prognosis of nerve pathology following whiplash injury: a prospective cohort study. Brain, https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awaf088

Stone, N., Graham, C., Bremner, S., McGrath, N., Bedford, R., Brown, K. E., . . . To, Y. (2024). Evaluating the Home-based Intervention Strategy (HIS-UK) to reduce new chlamydia infection among young men aged 16-25 years by promoting correct and consistent condom use: findings from a randomised controlled trial. BMC Health Services Research, 24, doi:10.1186/s12913-024-11911-2

Greenwood, K., Jones, C., Yaziji, N., Healey, A., May, C., Bremner, S., . . . Peters, E. (2024). The Early Youth Engagement (EYE-2) intervention in first episode psychosis services: a pragmatic cluster RCT and cost-effectiveness evaluation. British Journal of Psychiatry, pages. doi:10.1192/bjp.2024.154

Dunn, A., Alvarez, J., Arbon, A., Bremner, S., Elsby-Pearson, C., Emsley, R., . . . Cartwright-Hatton, S. (2024). Effectiveness of an unguided modular online intervention for highly anxious parents in preventing anxiety in their children: a parallel group randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Regional Health - Europe, 45, doi:10.1016/j.lanepe.2024.101038

Dore, R., Barnes, K., Bremner, S., Iwami, H. I., Apele-Freimane, D., Batton, B., . . . Rabe, H. (2024). Neonatal blood pressure by birth weight, gestational age, and postnatal age: a systematic review. Maternal Health, Neonatology and Perinatology, 10(1), doi:10.1186/s40748-024-00180-w

Ruffles, T., Inglis, S. K., Memon, A., Seddon, P., Basu, K., Bremner, S. A., . . . Fidler, K. J. (2024). Visible damp in a child’s bedroom is associated with increased respiratory morbidity in early life: a multicentre cohort study. Archives of Disease in Childhood, doi:10.1136/archdischild-2024-326944

Clair-Sullivan, N. S., Bristowe, K., Khan, I., Maddocks, M., Harding, R., Bremner, S., . . . Rojas, J. V. (2023). Implementation of frailty screening for older people living with HIV in Brighton, UK. HIV Medicine, pages. doi:10.1111/hiv.13598

Verma, S., Hingwala, J., Low, J. T. S., Patel, A. A., Verma, M., Bremner, S., . . . Ufere, N. N. (2023). Palliative clinical trials in advanced chronic liver disease: challenges and opportunities. Journal of Hepatology, doi:10.1016/j.jhep.2023.06.018

Bradshaw, D., Abramowicz, I., Bremner, S., Verma, S., Gilleece, Y., Kirk, S., . . . Perry, N. (2023). Hepmarc: a 96 week randomised controlled feasibility trial of add-on maraviroc in people with HIV and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. PLoS One, 18(7), doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0288598

Gillard, S., Barlow, S., Bremner, S., Foster, R., Gibson, S., Goldsmith, L., . . . White, S. (2022). Peer support for discharge from inpatient mental health care – Authors' reply. The Lancet Psychiatry, 9(7), 542-543. doi:10.1016/S2215-0366(22)00205-X

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