Professor Carol Brayne CBE is Professor of Public Health Medicine in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care in the University of Cambridge. She is Co-Chair of Cambridge Public Health. Her research focuses on the public health of ageing.

Carol is a medically qualified epidemiologist and public health academic.

She graduated in medicine from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, University of London, and went on to train in general medicine. After gaining membership she moved on to training in epidemiology with a Training Fellowship with the Medical Research Council. The research area for this Fellowship was ageing and dementia.

Since the mid eighties her main research area has been longitudinal studies of older people following changes over time in cognition, dementia natural history and associated features with a public health perspective.

She is lead principal investigator in the group of MRC CFA Studies which have informed, and will continue to inform, national policy and scientific understanding of dementia in whole populations. She has been responsible for training programmes in epidemiology and public health for under and postgraduates since the early nineties.

Alongside being Co-Chair of Cambridge Public Health at the University of Cambridge, Carol holds the position of Faculty of Public Health, Academic & Research committee Chair, Royal College of Physicians special advisor, NIHR Senior Investigator PH SIG co-lead, SPHR member PI, and CLAHRC theme lead.

Carol was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her services to public health medicine in 2017. She is consistently listed among the highest cited scholars in the world across all disciplines.

 

The Public Health of Ageing Research Unit

Carol’s research team (The Public Health of Ageing Research Unit) members are listed on this page.

Key studies led by Professor Brayne:

CFAS – The Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies are large UK-based longitudinal multicentre studies looking at health and cognitive function in older people.

CC75C – The Cambridge City over-75s Cohort Study (CC75C) is a long-term follow-up study of a representative population-based sample of older people which started in 1985 from a survey of over 2,600 men and women aged 75 and above.

CamCan – Cam-CAN is a large-scale collaborative research project, launched in October 2010, with substantial funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). The Cam-CAN project is using epidemiological, behavioural, and neuroimaging data to understand how individuals can best retain cognitive abilities into old age.

NIHR CLAHRC Eastern

The Institute’s programmes of work cover  End of Life Care (Dr Stephen Barclay), dementia and frailty (Dr Jane Fleming).

NIHR School for Public Health Research

The Institute hosts the Cambridge team investigating ageing well, alcohol, childhood obesity and the effects of the built environment on health. This programme is co-ordinated by Dr Louise LaFortune.

Global public health

This area of work will focus on aspects of global mental health and prisoner health (Dr Tine van Bortel)

Profiles

BMJ Confidential profile of Carol Brayne, June 2014

Lancet 2008

Commentary

Innovation should support societal responsibility for health, BMJ, Dec 2019

Which? Can you cut your risk of dementia? July 2016

Selected Publications

Yu-Tzu Wu, Laura Fratiglioni, Fiona E Matthews, Antonio Lobo, Monique M B Breteler, Ingmar Skoog, Carol Brayne
Dementia in western Europe: epidemiological evidence and implications for policy making
Lancet Neurol. August 21, 2015. PMID: 26300044

Norton S, Matthews FE, Barnes DE, Yaffe K, Brayne C.
Potential for primary prevention of Alzheimer’s disease: an analysis of population-based data.
Lancet Neurol. 2014 Aug;13(8):788-94. PMID: 25030513

Matthews FE, Stephan BCM, Robinson L, Jagger C, Barnes LE, Arthur A, Brayne C & Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (CFAS) Collaboration
A two decade dementia incidence comparison from the Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies I and II
Nat Commun. 2016 Apr 19;7:11398. doi: 10.1038/ncomms11398. PMID: 27092707

Jagger C, Matthews FE, Wohland P, Fouweather T, Stephan BC, Robinson L, Arthur A, Brayne C; Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Collaboration.
A comparison of health expectancies over two decades in England: results of the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study I and II.
Lancet. 2015 Dec 8. PMID: 26680218

Kingston A, Wohland P, Wittenberg R, Robinson L1, Brayne C, Matthews FE, Jagger C; Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies collaboration.
Is late-life dependency increasing or not? A comparison of the Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (CFAS).
Lancet. 2017 Aug 14. pii: S0140-6736(17)31575-1. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31575-1. PMID: 28821408

Hokkanen SRK, Hunter S, Polvikoski TM, Keage HAD, Minett T, Matthews FE, Brayne C; MRC CFAS and CC75C Study Group.
Hippocampal sclerosis, hippocampal neuron loss patterns and Tdp-43 in the aged population.
Brain Pathol. 2017 Aug 18. doi: 10.1111/bpa.12556. PMID: 28833898

Davis DH, Skelly DT, Murray C, Hennessy E, Bowen J, Norton S, Brayne C, Rahkonen T, Sulkava R, Sanderson DJ, Rawlins JN, Bannerman DM, MacLullich AM, Cunningham C.
Worsening Cognitive Impairment and Neurodegenerative Pathology Progressively Increase Risk for Delirium. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2014 Aug 15. pii: S1064-7481(14)00230-9. PMID:25239680

Carol Brayne: a life-course approach to prevent dementia
Bull World Health Organ. 2018 Mar 1;96(3):153-154. doi: 10.2471/BLT.18.030318. PMID: 29531413

For a full list of publications please visit Professor Brayne’s PubMed page.

Related Page

The Public Health of Ageing Research Unit