Research Groups
Alex Walker
Director of Research
Coordinator of epidemiology research for OpenSAFELY and OpenPrescribing
I am a non-clinical epidemiologist at the University of Oxford, with a particular interest in electronic healthcare record tools, time course analysis, risk stratification, prognosis modelling and novel computational methods in epidemiology.
I work at the Bennett institute for Applied Data Science in Oxford, primarily on OpenSAFELY and OpenPrescribing. My current activities include coordinating and conducting research within the OpenSAFELY platform, and working to build tools to make electronic health record research more transparent, reproducible and reusable.
Before coming to Oxford I was a Senior Research Fellow at The University of Nottingham, where I worked on a variety of projects relating to several disease areas, including; hepatitis C, cancer and venous thromboembolism. My work to date has mostly focused on using routinely collected data –data sources such as the CPRD, HES and ONS data– to answer pragmatic and clinically relevant questions. I completed my PhD in the Division of Epidemiology and Public Health at Nottingham, which involved pharmacoepidemiology, commonly prescribed drugs and cancer. Before that I completed a MSc in Oncology and a BSc in Biochemistry and Genetics.
Recent publications
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Therapeutics Dataset from COVID-19 Medicine Delivery Units in England: an OpenSAFELY Data Report
Journal article
Nab L. et al, (2025), Wellcome Open Research, 9, 425 - 425
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The relationship between general practice characteristics, case-mix, and secondary care attendances/admissions before and after the COVID-19 pandemic: Protocol for an OpenSAFELY cohort study
Journal article
Zou M. et al, (2025), Wellcome Open Research, 10, 396 - 396
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Variation in duration of repeat prescriptions: a primary care cohort study in England
Journal article
MacKenna B. et al, (2025), British Journal of General Practice, 75, e448 - e456
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Effect of the 2022 COVID-19 booster vaccination campaign in people aged 50 years in England: Regression discontinuity analysis in OpenSAFELY-TPP
Journal article
Schaffer AL. et al, (2025), Vaccine, 59
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Patient characteristics associated with clinically coded long COVID: an OpenSAFELY study using electronic health records.
Journal article
Wei Y. et al, (2025), BJGP Open