Professor Elizabeth Draper

Professor Draper’s research focuses on the health and well-being of babies and children. Her expertise includes the use of population data to improve quality of life following preterm birth, identifying best practice for paediatric intensive care and improving pregnancy outcomes through perinatal surveillance.

Professor Draper is currently investigator on a number of projects that are monitoring and providing insight into the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on pregnancy outcomes and the impact on neonatal and paediatric intensive care.

She leads the national perinatal surveillance and enquiries for MBRRACE-UK (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK), which is monitoring COVID-19 perinatal outcomes for the UK.

Professor Draper also jointly leads the national paediatric intensive care audit network, PICANet, which is carrying out daily reporting to NHS organisations of newly confirmed cases of children with COVID-19 admitted to paediatric intensive care. The network has developed a customised audit evaluating the symptoms, testing and treatment for paediatric cases.

She is also collaborating on a study which seeks to understand and inform neonatal care in COVID-19 for the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit (BPSU).

Interests

• Epidemiology of neonatal and paediatric intensive care
• Epidemiology of congenital anomalies
• Aetiology of congenital anomalies and prematurity
• Long term follow-up studies of premature births, congenital anomalies and after period of critical care
• International standardisation of perinatal data collection

Projects

• East Midlands and South Yorkshire Congenital Anomalies Register (Public Health England)
• National Paediatric Intensive Care Database (HQIP, NHS Lothian, Health Commission Wales, Royal Hospital Belfast, Our Lady's Hospital Dublin, Children's University Hospital Dublin)
• The Neonatal Survey and Follow-up (Neonatal Networks)

Co-investigator

• Towards reducing infant mortality: a population approach (NIHR)
• EPICure: population based studies of survival and later health status of infants of 25 weeks gestation or less (MRC)
• Aetiology of gastroschisis: a prospective case-control study to investigate the effects of lifestyle, dietary and environmental exposures (Newlife)
• The feasibility of investigating the outcomes at age 2 years for children born with congenital diaphragmatic hernia. FOCAL: a BINOCAR collaboration. (Newlife)
• Effects of prenatal alcohol consumption and alcohol metabolising genes on child growth and neurodevelopment in the ALSPAC study (Wellcome Trust)
• Prenatal diagnosis of lissencephaly by in utero magnetic resonance imaging (Newlife)
• EPICE Effective Perinatal Intensive Care in Europe - translating knowledge into evidence-based practice (EU)
• MBRRACE-UK Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (HQIP)

Johnson S, Seaton SE, Manktelow BN, Smith LK, Field D, Draper ES, Marlow N, Boyle EM. Telephone interviews and online questionnaires can be used to improve neurodevelopmental follow-up rates. BMC Research Notes 2014;7:219.

Smith LK, Manktelow BN, Draper ES, Boyle EM, Johnson SJ, Field DJ. Trends in the incidence and mortality of multiple births by socioeconomic deprivation and maternal age in England: population-based cohort study. BMJ Open 2014;4(4):e004514-e004514.

Smith LK, Draper ES, Field D. Long-term outcome for the tiniest or most immature babies: survival rates. Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine 2014;19(2):72-77

Smith L, Draper ES, Manktelow BN, Pritchard C, Field DJ. Comparing regional infant death rates: the influence of preterm births < 24 weeks of gestation. Archives of Disease in Childhood-Fetal and Neonatal Edition 2013;98(2):F103-F107.

Seaton SE, King S, Manktelow BN, Draper ES, Field DJ. Babies born at the threshold of viability: changes in survival and workload over 20 years. Archives of Disease in Childhood-Fetal and Neonatal Edition 2013;98(1):F15-F20.

Bonet M, Smith LK, Pilkington H, Draper ES, Zeitlin J. Neighbourhood deprivation and very preterm birth in an English and French cohort. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 2013;13:97.

Alati R, Smith GD, Lewis SJ, Sayal K, Draper ES, Golding J, Fraser R, Gray R. Effect of prenatal alcohol exposure on childhood academic outcomes: contrasting maternal and paternal associations in the ALSPAC Study. PLOS One 2013;8(10):e74844.

Seaton SE, Field DJ, Draper ES, Manktelow BN, Smith GCS, Springett A, Smith LK. Socioeconomic inequalities in the rate of stillbirths by cause: a population-based study. BMJ Open 2012;2(3):e001100.

Schuit E, Hukkelhoven C, Manktelow BN, Papatsonis DNM, de Kleine MJK, Draper ES, Steyerberg EW, Vergouwe Y. Prognostic models for stillbirth and neonatal death in very preterm birth: a validation study. Pediatrics 2012;129(1):E120-E127.

Howe DT, Rankin J, Draper ES. Schizencephaly prevalence, prenatal diagnosis and clues to etiology: a register-based study. Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology 2012;39(1):75-82.

• Graduate Studies Committee for College of Medicine and Biological Sciences
• Higher Degrees Committee for College of Medicine and Biological Sciences
• Lead Postgraduate Tutor
• Director Learning and Teaching Committee
• HADPOP tutor

• Neonatal Critical Care HRG Expert Working Group for the NHSIA 2005 to date
• Chief Medical Officers Working Group on Congenital Anomalies  2005 – 2006
• Fetal Anomaly Audit Group for National Screening Committee  2005 – 2008
• Data group for Neonatal Taskforce for DH  2008 to date
• Chair of BINOCAR (British Isles Network of Congenital Anomaly Registers)  2003 to date
• Chair of BAPM Data Working Group  2009
• Member of Data Monitoring Committee for AMIPROM Trial  2009
• Member of Trial Management Group for CATCH Trial  2009
• LNR representative on National Clinical Genetics Specialty Group NIHR CRN  2009
• Fever Project Board member RCPCH  2008 to date
• Chair of Leicester City & County Maternity Services Liaison Committee 2004 to 2010