Dr Alex Dregan is a Senior Lecturer in Psychiatric Epidemiology in the Department of Psychological medicine, at the IoPPN, King’s College London. He obtained his PhD from the Institute of Education, University of London where he trained in life course epidemiology. Leveraging prospective data from the BCS70 cohort, he documented pervasive adverse outcomes during adult years among children placed in the care of local authorities during the 1970s and 1980s. He also posses an MSc in Applied Psychology from Cardiff University and a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from the University of Surrey.

Dr Dregan research is oriented towards depression-related multimorbidity across the life-course, its etiology, drivers and progression towards more complex patterns over time. His work also seeks to identify optimal prescribing practices to avert adverse drug effects and improve functional outcomes for patients on multiple drug combinations with antidepressants (polypharmacy). Towards achieving these goals, he emloys advanced epidemiological methods (eg., causal mediation, latent class analysis) in combination with AI techniques (data mining, prognostic modeling) to electronic health records (CPRD) and pooled cohorts data (birth cohorts, UK Biobank). He has been the PI of an MRC-funded award  that harmonised data across three UK birth cohorts (BCS70, NCDS58, and NSHD46) as a unique resource for understanding the role of depression in the life-course trajectory of physical multimorbidity. 

His work also involves the use of natural experiment designs to evaluate the impact of large-scale interventions, such as the IAPT in long-term conditions (LTC), on disease progression and patient-centred outcomes in the context of discordant mental and physical multimorbidity. His research has recently expanded to understand the role of gut-brain axis in the etiology and outcomes of depression-related multimorbidity and treatment response to antidepressants.  Dr Dregan substantive research has been supported through competitive funding from UKRI, NIHR, and charitable organisations, as well as a growing network of national and international collaborators.