Professor Dr. James Sheppard

Biography

James Sheppard is a Professor of Applied Health Data Science at the University of Oxford, where he works within the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. He is an NIHR Advanced Fellow and an applied health data scientist with a focus on understanding the benefits and harms of treatments, particularly in the context of cardiovascular disease prevention. His research aims to develop tools that improve the targeting of preventative therapies such as antihypertensives and statins for patients. As the lead of the Hypertension Stratified Treatments Research (STAR) groups, Sheppard strives to enhance the management of hypertension and the prescribing of medications for patients with multiple long-term conditions. His work involves using prognostic modeling techniques to predict which patients are likely to benefit from or suffer harm due to medications commonly prescribed in primary care. He conducts systematic reviews of adverse events associated with treatments and is involved in trials such as OPTiMISE and OPTIMISE2. Additionally, he has developed a clinical prediction tool known as PRedicting Out-of-OFfice Blood Pressure (PROOF-BP) to facilitate targeted ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in primary care. Sheppard supervises several DPhil students and teaches on the MSc in Applied Digital Health, further contributing to academic and clinical practice in hypertension treatment.

Research Interests