Luke Paterson

Luke is undertaking a DPhil in Primary Health Care, funded by the NIHR. His research focuses on methods to evaluate the long-term cost-effectiveness of contemporary therapies for type 2 diabetes. He is broadly interested in evidence synthesis, causal inference, and decision modelling for health technology assessment. 

For his DPhil, Luke is developing a framework to estimate and incorporate treatment benefits not explained by conventional risk factors into economic models. In type 2 diabetes, drug classes such as biguanides, SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists appear to have benefits beyond their effects on blood glucose. This creates a challenge for generating economic evidence, as most models used to predict lifetime cost-effectiveness rely on relationships between risk factors such as blood glucose and downstream clinical outcomes, such as stroke. Luke is applying causal inference and mediation analysis methods to individual patient data from the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) and multiple cardiovascular outcome trials in type 2 diabetes. This research has the potential to improve the evidence base for the cost-effectiveness of future diabetes treatments.

Prior to joining Oxford in 2024, Luke worked for three years as a research associate at the Manchester Centre for Health Economics (MCHE). There, he contributed to more than ten research projects and was directly involved as a supporting or lead analyst on eight projects spanning diabetes, dementia, self-harm, psychosis, non-psychotic mental health, and patient safety. He has experience in a range of statistical and decision-modelling methods to inform health policy and economic evaluation.