Dr Kyla Thomas is an Associate Professor in Public Health Medicine at the University of Bristol, Clinical Director of the NIHR Clinical Research Network West of England and Honorary Consultant in Public Health at South Gloucestershire Council and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. She graduated with MBBS (Distinction) from the University of the West Indies in 2003 before obtaining an MSc by Research in Clinical Epidemiology and MSc Global Health Science (Distinction) from Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. Dr Thomas was awarded a PhD with Commendation from the University of Bristol in 2014.

Dr Thomas’ main research interests include using pharmacoepidemiological methods to investigate the effectiveness and safety of smoking cessation medicines and e-cigarettes. Her current NIHR fellowship is focused on developing a primary care-based intervention to prevent and reduce opioid painkiller dependence in patients with chronic non cancer pain. Her research has informed the risk benefit analysis of smoking cessation medicines by regulators such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and informed NICE public health guidance on smoking cessation. She was the 2019 joint winner of the Society for the Study of Addiction Fred Yates prize for researcher of the year.

Summary of Research Interests:

- pharmacoepidemiology, in particular psychiatric adverse drug reactions (depression, non-fatal self-harm and suicide) associated with varenicline, a smoking cessation medicine and antidepressants

- use of large primary care databases such as the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) for observational research including novel study designs for dealing with confounding by indication such as instrumental variables and case only designs

- substance dependence and addiction (prescription opioid dependence)

- mental health research (suicide and self-harm) and suicide prevention

- trends in suicide in the UK and internationally