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 persistent adverse mental health outcomes during adult years among children placed in the care of local authorities during the 1970s and 1980s. He was also awarded an MSc in Applied Psychology from Cardiff University and a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from the University of Surrey.

Dr Dregan main research interests include the epidemiology, prevention, and management of depression-related multimorbidity across the life-course. His research includes the use of natural experiment designs to evaluate the impact of population health interventions, such as the NHS Talking Therapy, on the prevention and attenuation of functional decline in people with psychiatric multimorbidity and long-term conditions. His work also involves the use pharmacoepidemiology to optimise antidepressant drugs use to prevent age-related multimorbidity and functional decline among people with depression. Dr Dregan methodological interests lie in methods and measures to evaluate fluctuations in multimorbidity and its treatment burden across the life-course, and the development of measures that more comprehensively capture the multidimensional nature of psychiatric multimorbidity.  He is a member of the methodologies workstream of the NIHR Multiple Long-Term Conditions (CNC) programme. 
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. Dr Dregan was awarded an MRC grant that leveraged pooled data across three UK birth cohorts (BCS70, NCDS58, and NSHD46) to evaluate the etiology, patterning, and consequences of depression-driven physical multimorbidity across the life-course. He is co-investigator on the UKRI-funded Population Health Improvement Network (PROMISE) award (£7 million, 2024-2028) where he shares leadership of the prevention of mental health multimorbidity workstream. He is also part of a multidisciplinary team led by Southampton University (Prof Fraser) collaborating on an NIHR-funded award aimed to evaluate life-course determinants and prevention of early-onset multimorbidity (MELD-B).