Professor Samantha Johnson

Samantha Johnson is a developmental psychologist and Professor of Child Development in the Department of Population Health Sciences, and a member of the Health and Wellbeing Research Group in the Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour. Samantha has experience in the design and conduct of longitudinal cohort studies and clinical trials of perinatal and neonatal interventions. She has contributed to the development of clinical guidelines and standards of care for follow up care for babies admitted to neonatal care after birth.

Samantha has a programme of research focused on understanding and improving long term neurodevelopmental outcomes for children born at risk and on developing outcome assessments for use in clinical services and research. She is particularly interested in the impact of gestational age at birth on health and wellbeing and the long term consequences of preterm birth on children’s cognitive, mental health and educational outcomes. Working with colleagues from multiple disciplines, she has developed resources to help teachers and parents support preterm born children in schools which are freely available online.

• Sequelae of preterm birth.
• Improving educational support for children born preterm
• Development and evaluation of interventions to improve long-term outcomes in high-risk populations.
• Perinatal clinical trials.
• Neurodevelopmental outcome assessment.

Current projects

• 2021-2025: Fluids Exclusively Enteral from Day 1 (FEED1): A randomised controlled trial of full milk feeds versus intravenous nutrition with gradual feeding for preterm infants (30-33 weeks gestational age) - 2 year follow-up. Co-Investigator. Funded by NIHR Health Technology Assessment (£344,446).
• 2021-2027: Investigating the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a nutrient enriched diet for babies with a brain injury: The DOLFIN Randomised controlled trial. Co-investigator. Funded by NIHR Health Technology Assessment (£2,997,591).
• 2021-2022: Impact of SARS-CoV-2 exposure during pregnancy and the neonatal period on infants’ neurodevelopment and social-emotional outcomes; SINEPOST Study. Co-Investigator. Funded by Action Medical Research (£151,287).
• 2017-2021: Lending a helping hand to very preterm infants: A randomised controlled trial of the effectiveness of sticky mittens for enhancing cognitive development from ages 3 to 15 months. Co-Investigator. Funded by Action Medical Research (£134,594). For a summary of the project see the website of Action Medical Research.
• 2014-2020: Outcome after Selective Early Closure of Ductus Arteriosus in Extremely Preterm Babies (Baby-OSCAR Trial) - Co-investigator. Funded by NIHR Health Technology Assessment (£2,412,174).
• 2021-2023: Modi N, Johnson S, Lek E, Godambe S, Fukari-Irvine E, Tusor N, Ogundipe E, Eyre E, Belazel D, Wardle S, Arasu A, Cornelius V. ePARCA-R Service Improvement Study: Systematic electronic capture of parent reported cognitive and language development in children aged two-years - Co-investigator. Imperial College London.

Peer reviewed journal papers

• Bamber D, Collins HE, Powell C, Goncalves GC, Johnson S, Manktelow B, Ornelas JP, Lopes JC, Rocha A, Draper ES. Development of a data classification system for preterm birth cohort studies: The RECAP Preterm project. BMC Medical Research Methodology 2022;22:8.
• Kim SW, Andronis L, Seppanen AV, Aubert A, Zeitlin J, Barros H, Draper ES, Petrou S on behalf of the SHIPS Research Group. Economic costs and age five associated with very preterm birth: multinational European cohort study. Pediatric Research 2021, E Pub.
• Trickett, J. Bernardi, M. Fahy, A. Lancaster, R., Larsen, J., Ni, Y., Suonpera, E., Wolke, D. Marlow, N. Johnson, S. Neuropsychological abilities underpinning academic attainment in children born extremely preterm. Child Neuropsychology 2022, EPub ahead of print.
• Jaekel J, Anderson PJ, Cheong JLY, Doyle LW, Johnson S, Marlow N, Saigal S, Schmidt L, Sullivan MC, Wolke D. Mathematical performance in childhood and early adult outcomes after very preterm birth: an individual participant data meta-analysis. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology 2021, EPub ahead of print
• Sentenac M, Chaimani A, Twilhaar S, Morgan A, Benhammou V, Johnson S, Zeitlin J. The challenges of heterogeneity in gestational age and birthweight inclusion criteria for research synthesis on very preterm birth and childhood cognition: An umbrella review and meta-regression analysis. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology 2021.
• Anderson PJ, de Miranda D, Albuquerque MR, Indredavik MS, Evenson KAI, van Lieshout R, Saigal S, Tylor HG, Raikkonen K, Marlow N, Johnson S, Woodward LJ, Austin N, Nosarti C, Jaekel J, Wolke D, Cheong, JL,Y, Burnett A, Lee KJ, Doyle LW, Kajante E, Treyvaud K. Psychiatric disorders in individuals born very preterm / very low-birth weight: An individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis. EClinical Medicine 2021;42:101216.
• Nourkami-Tutdibi N, Tutdibi E, Faas T, Wagenpfeil G, Draper ES, Johnson S, Cuttini M, El Rafei R, Seppänen A-V, Mazela JL, Maier RF, Nuytten A, Barros H, Rodrigues C, Zeitlin J, Zemlin M on behalf of the EPICE Research Group. Neonatal morbidity and mortality in advanced aged mothers - Maternal age is not an independent risk factor for infants born very preterm. Frontiers in Pediatrics 2021;9:Article 747203.
• Retzler J, Johnson S, Groom MJ, Cragg L. A comparison of simultaneous and sequential visuo-spatial memory in children born very preterm. Child Neuropsychology 2021, published online 31/10/2021.
• Ni Y, Johnson S, Marlow N, Wolke D. Reduced health-related quality of life in children born extremely preterm in 2006 compared with 1995: The EPICure studies. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2021;0:F1–F6, published online 25/10/2021.
• Ni Y, Mendonca M, Baumann N, Eves R, Kajante E, Hovi P, Tikanmaki M, Raikkonen K, Hainonen K, Indredavik MS, Evenson KAI, Johnson S, Marlow N, Wolke D. Social functioning in adults born very preterm: Individual participant meta-analysis. Pediatrics November 2021;148(5): e2021051986.

• Member of the British Academy of Childhood Disability (BACD) Strategic Research Group (SRG) (From 2020)
• Member of the British Association of Neonatal Neurodevelopmental Follow Up (BANNFU); Special Interest Group of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine (From 2020)
• Member of the Scientific Advisory Panel for Action Medical Research UK
• Expert Adviser for the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) Centre for Guidelines (From 2017)
• Member of the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) Quality Standard Advisory Committee (QSAC) for the Developmental follow-up of children and young people born preterm guideline (2017-2018)
• Developmental Psychologist for the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) Guideline Committee for the Developmental follow-up of children and young people born preterm guideline (2015-2017)
• Invited member of the European Foundation for Care of Newborn Infants Topic Expert Group for “Follow-up and continuing care” for the development of European Standards of Care for Newborn Health
• Member of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit Clinical Trials Advisory Group
• Member of the Adults Born Preterm International Collaboration
• Member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the SPRING Study
• Member of the PremLife Project Scientific Advisory Board