Luisa Zuccolo
- Research Group Leader, Zuccolo Group
Dr. Luisa Zuccolo is an epidemiologist with expertise in causal inference applied to population health. Following her first degree in Physics, she obtained a Fellowship from the University of Turin, Italy, in Cancer Epidemiology and Surveillance. She then moved to the University of Bristol (UK) and was awarded a pre-doctoral Fellowship from the UK Medical Research Council to complete an MSc in Epidemiology (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and a PhD in Genetic Epidemiology with Prof. George Davey Smith (University of Bristol). She was then awarded a second MRC Fellowship in Population Health Science and Epidemiology, after which, in 2018, she secured a tenured position at the University of Bristol. Dr. Zuccolo’s past research includes the causal effects of alcohol on health, in particular of prenatal alcohol exposure, using methods and designs that improve causal inference. More recently, she has focussed on maternal and child health, researching barriers to and effects of prolonged breastfeeding, the impact of COVID-19 on fertility and pregnancy outcomes, and misinformation around public health messaging on social media.
Publications
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12/2023 - Journal of Medical Internet Research
Evaluating Messaging on Prenatal Health Behaviors Using Social Media Data: Systematic Review
Background:Social media platforms are increasingly being used to disseminate messages about prenatal health. However, to date, we lack a systematic assessment of how to evaluate the impact of official prenatal health messaging and campaigns using social media data. Objective:This study aims to review both the published and gray literature on how official prenatal health messaging […]
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09/2023 - BMC Infectious Diseases
COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy: the impact of multimorbidity and smoking status on vaccine hesitancy, a cohort study of 25,111 women in Wales, UK
Background Multimorbidity, smoking status, and pregnancy are identified as three risk factors associated with more severe outcomes following a SARS-CoV-2 infection, thus vaccination uptake is crucial for pregnant women living with multimorbidity and a history of smoking. This study aimed to examine the impact of multimorbidity, smoking status, and demographics (age, ethnic group, area of […]
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07/2023 - BMJ Medicine
Vaccine effectiveness for prevention of covid-19 related hospital admission during pregnancy in England during the alpha and delta variant dominant periods of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: population based cohort study
Objective: To estimate vaccine effectiveness for preventing covid-19 related hospital admission in individuals first infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus during pregnancy compared with those of reproductive age who were not pregnant when first infected with the virus. Design: Population based cohort study. Setting: Office for National Statistics Public Health Data Asset linked dataset, providing national linked census and […]
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02/2023 - Paedriatic and Perinatal Epidemiology
Bounding the average causal effect in Mendelian randomisation studies with multiple proposed instruments: An application to prenatal alcohol exposure and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Background As large-scale observational data become more available, caution regarding causal assumptions remains critically important. This may be especially true for Mendelian randomisation (MR), an increasingly popular approach. Point estimation in MR usually requires strong, often implausible homogeneity assumptions beyond the core instrumental conditions. Bounding, which does not require homogeneity assumptions, is infrequently applied in […]
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