Research Groups
Andrea Schaffer
BSc, MSc, MBiostat, PhD
Senior epidemiologist
Andrea Schaffer is an epidemiologist who has been working with OpenSAFELY since 2022. She has over 15 years' experience working with routine data. Her research interests include using routine data to understand how medicines are used in the population, with a particular interest in methods for evaluating the impact of policy interventions on medicine use and health outcomes (e.g. interrupted time series analysis, regression discontinuity). Prior to coming to the University of Oxford, she was based in Australia and obtained her PhD in pharmacoepidemiology from the University of New South Wales, and also has an MSc in Epidemiology (McGill University), and an MBiostat in Biostatistics (University of Sydney).
She is open to discussing project ideas with prospective DPhil students, particularly those interested in pharmacoepidemiology, health service utilisation, and time series analysis.
Recent publications
From cutoff to causality: regression discontinuity design for evaluating acute kidney injury e-alerts
Journal article
Schaffer AL. and Tomlinson LA., (2026), Kidney International, 109, 834 - 837
Interrupted Time Series Analysis for Policy Evaluation.
Journal article
Schaffer AL. et al, (2026), JAMA Intern Med
Using electronic health record data accessed via OpenSAFELY to develop indicators of end-of-life care quality
Preprint
Bagri S. et al, (2026)
Time trends in newly recorded diagnoses of 19 long term conditions before, during, and after the covid-19 pandemic: population based cohort study in England using OpenSAFELY
Journal article
Russell MD. et al, (2026), BMJ, 392
Short-term risk of falls among initiators of controlled-release tapentadol versus oxycodone: A population-based cohort study
Preprint
Camacho X. et al, (2026)