Dr Sharmin Shabnam

Dr Sharmin Shabnam is a Health Data Scientist at the Leicester Real World Evidence Unit, Leicester Diabetes Centre, University of Leicester. Her expertise is in managing and analysing large, complex relational electronic databases from UK healthcare records, from both primary and secondary care sources such as Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Office for National Statistics (ONS) Death Registry etc. With a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, her work bridges data science and healthcare, focusing on analysis of real-world data to support evidence-based decision-making. 

She is a member of the BHF CVD-COVID-UK / COVID-IMPACT consortium which is a UK-wide collaborative research initiative led by the British Heart Foundation Data Science Centre at Health Data Research UK. She is investigating the health impacts of COVID-19 by analysing national-level de-identified, linked electronic health records from across the UK within secure Trusted Research Environments.

She was a member of the DECODE (Develop and Enhance the Care coordination for people with intellectual disabilities and multiple long term Conditions) consortium which is a collaborative research project supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) programme Artificial Intelligence for Multiple Long-Term Conditions (AIM). She is also a member of the the Monitoring Mortality Inequality Consortium.

Her interests are in data-driven healthcare research and engaging in innovative projects to improve patient outcomes and addressing health inequalities. Her work includes advanced data curation, statistical modelling, machine learning, and analysing diverse data sources to study diabetes and its complications, obesity, multiple long-term conditions, and ethnic and social disparities in health outcomes. 

• Shabnam, S., Zaccardi, F., Islam, N., Yates, T., et al. (2025). Hospitalisation and mortality before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in individuals with cardiorenal–metabolic diseases in the UK: A retrospective cohort study. The Lancet Primary Care, 1(2).
• Shabnam, S., Ling, S., Gillies, C. L., Zaccardi, F., et al. (2025). Glucose control, sulfonylureas, and insulin treatment in older adults with type 2 diabetes and risk of falls and fractures: An observational study. Diabetes Care, 48(10):1744–1751.
• Shabnam, S., Zaccardi, F., Yates, T., Islam, N., et al. (2025). COVID-19 pandemic and risk factor measurement in individuals with cardio-renal-metabolic diseases: A retrospective study in the United Kingdom. PLoS One, 20(4), e0319438.
• Shabnam, S., Islam, N., Zaccardi, F., Khunti, K., Gillies, C. L. (2025). Ensuring equity in chronic disease surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet Primary Care.
• Panchal, K., Lawson, C., Shabnam, S., Khunti, K., et al. (2025). Risk of ischaemic and non-ischaemic heart failure in people with type 2 diabetes: Observational study in 1.6 million people in England. Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews, 41(6), e70072.
• Panchal, K., Lawson, C. A., Shabnam, S., Khunti, K., et al. (2025). Mortality risk following ischaemic and non-ischaemic heart failure in people with type 2 diabetes: Observational study in England, 2000–2021. Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 27(7), 3848–3857.
• Panchal, K., Lawson, C., Shabnam, S., Khunti, K., et al. (2025). Incidence trends in ischaemic and non-ischaemic heart failure in people with and without type 2 diabetes, 2000–2019: An observational study in England. Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, 220, 111980.
• Lo, D., Lawson, C., Broomfield, J., Gillies, C., Shabnam, S., et al. (2025). Risk factors for recurrent attacks of wheeze in preschool children: A population-based cohort study in England. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 110:919-926.
• Gharibzadeh, S., Lee, J., Highton, P., Greenlaw, N., … Shabnam, S., et al. (2025). Risk factors for development of diabetic foot ulcer disease in two large contemporary UK cohorts. Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 27(9): 4782-4792.
• Goldney, J., Barker, M. M., Sargeant, J. A., Daynes, E., … Shabnam, S., et al. (2025). Burden of vascular risk factors by age, sex, ethnicity and deprivation in young adults with and without newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, 220, 112002.
• Cosma, G., Abakasanga, E., Kousovista, R., Shabnam, S., et al. (2025). Comorbidity patterns and temporal associations of multiple long-term conditions in adults with intellectual disability: An observational study in the United Kingdom. arXiv, arXiv:2503.08378.
• Shabnam, S., Abner, S., Gillies, C. L., Davies, M. J., et al. (2024). Effect of delay in treatment intensification in people with type 2 diabetes and suboptimal glycaemia after basal insulin initiation: A real-world observational study. Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 26(2), 512–523.
• Razieh, C., Shabnam, S., Dambha-Miller, H., Morris, E. J. A., et al. (2024). Socioeconomic inequalities in risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 delta and omicron variants in the UK, 2020-22: analysis of the longitudinal COVID-19 Infection Survey. BMJ Medicine, 3(1).
• Islam, N., Shabnam, S., Khan, N., Gillies, C., et al. (2024). Combinations of multiple long term conditions and risk of hospital admission or death during winter 2021-22 in England: population based cohort study. BMJ Medicine, 3(1), e001016.
• Lo, D., Lawson, C., Gillies, C. L., Shabnam, S., et al. (2024). Association between socioeconomic deprivation, ethnicity and health outcomes in preschool children with recurrent wheeze in England: a retrospective cohort study. Thorax, 79(11), 1050–1059.
• Shabnam, S., Kousovista, R., Abakasanga, E., et al. (2024). Data preparation and epidemiological plan – DECODE. OSF, doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/KT5FY.
• Shabnam, S., Razieh, C., Dambha-Miller, H., Yates, T., et al. (2023). Socioeconomic inequalities of Long COVID: A retrospective population-based cohort study in the United Kingdom. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 116(8), 263–273.
• Shabnam, S., Gillies, C. L., Davies, M. J., Dex, T., et al. (2023). Factors associated with therapeutic inertia in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus started on basal insulin. Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, 203, 110888.
• Ioannidou, E., Shabnam, S., Abner, S., Kaur, N., et al. (2023). Effect of more versus less intensive blood pressure control on cardiovascular, renal and mortality outcomes in people with type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research & Reviews, 17 (6), 102782.
• Zaccardi, F., Byrne, K., Khunti, K., Kloecker, D., Reynoso, R., Shabnam, S., et al. (2023). The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on the body mass index of people living with obesity: A UK retrospective cohort study using the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Obesity Research & Clinical Practice, 17(6), 468–476.
• Barker, M. M., Davies, M. J., Sargeant, J. A., Chan, J. C. N., Gregg, E. W., Shabnam, S., et al. (2023). Age at type 2 diabetes diagnosis and cause-specific mortality: Observational study of primary care patients in England. Diabetes Care, 46(11), 1965–1972.
• Abner, S., Gillies, C. L., Shabnam, S., Zaccardi, F., et al. (2022). Consultation rates in people with type 2 diabetes with and without vascular complications: A retrospective analysis of 141,328 adults in England. Cardiovascular Diabetology, 21(1), 8.
• Levene, L. S., Coles, B. D., Gillies, C. L., Shabnam, S., et al. (2022). Predictors of hypertension detection in English general practices: A cross-sectional study. Journal of Public Health, 44(1), e1–e9.
• Thygesen, J. H., Tomlinson, C., Hollings, S., Mizani, M. A., et al. (2022). COVID-19 trajectories among 57 million adults in England: A cohort study using electronic health records. The Lancet Digital Health, 4(7), e542–e557.
• Islam, N., Bukhari, Q., Jameel, Y., Shabnam, S., et al. (2021). COVID-19 and climatic factors: A global analysis. Environmental Research, 193, 110355.
• Islam, N., Lacey, B., Shabnam, S., Erzurumluoglu, A. M., et al. (2021). Social inequality and the syndemic of chronic disease and COVID-19: County-level analysis in the USA. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 75(6), 496–500.
• Islam, N., Sharp, S. J., Chowell, G., Shabnam, S., et al. (2020). Physical distancing interventions and incidence of coronavirus disease 2019: Natural experiment in 149 countries. BMJ, 370.
• Nazrul, I., Sharmin, S., Erzurumluoglu, M. E. A. (2020). Temperature, humidity, and wind speed are associated with lower COVID-19 incidence. medRxiv, early/2020/03/31/2020.03.27.20045658.

Dr Sharmin Shabnam is currently supervising 1 PhD student.

Current PhD students:

• Bismah Ghafoor (supv.  Sharmin Shabnam, Francesco Zaccardi, Kamlesh Khunti), Predicting diabetes-related complications with machine learning techniques, University of Leicester

Research grants and collaboration

Funder: National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) East Midlands (EM). ARC EM Theme-Data2Health. Trajectories of MLTCs associated with changes in body weight following surgical or medical interventions: A retrospective cohort study using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink. 
Principal Investigator. Date:  October 2024 - March 2026

Funder: Health Data Research UK and the Alan Turing Institute. COVID-19 Data Science Research Funding Call by Health Data Research UK and the Alan Turing Institute. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on risk factor control and outcomes in patients with long term conditions. Health Data Research UK. 
Co-I. Date: October 2021 - December 2022

Funder: Health Data Research UK. Data Science to inform NHS compound winter pressure policy response: a funding opportunity to rapidly mobilise skills and the UK health data infrastructure. Which combinations of Multiple Long-Term Conditions (MLTC) are associated with the greatest risk of hospital admission over the winter season, and to what extent does COVID-19 or influenza vaccination modify this risk?
Co-I. Date: January 2023 - March 2023

Funder: Office for National Statistics, COVID-19 Infection Survey call. Socioeconomic inequalities in the bidirectional relationship of occupation with COVID-19 exposure and post-COVID care pathways. 
Co-project lead. Date: January 2021 - March 2021