David Dunn, Professor of Medical Statistics

David joined the Unit in 1998 after previous spells at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Institute of Child Health. In 1997 he gained a PhD in statistical aspects of mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection.

His career has been largely based on the epidemiology of infectious diseases, particularly HIV infection. Formerly, he was the PI of the UK HIV Drug Resistance Database, which curated and analysed the results of HIV drug resistance tests performed as part of routine clinical care.

More recently, he has worked in HIV prevention, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and HIV self-testing. He was the statistician on the highly influential PROUD trial, a pragmatic RCT to assess the effectiveness of PrEP among MSM in the UK. His current methodological interests include the choice of estimands for non-inferiority trials and contradictions between statistical frequentist inference and rational clinical decision-making.


Selected publications

Rodger AJ, McCabe L, Phillips AN, Lampe FC, Burns F, Ward D, Delpech V, Weatherburn P, Witzel TC, Pebody R, Kirwan P, Gabriel M, Khawam J, Brady M, Fenton KA, Trevelion R, Collaco-Moraes Y, McCormack S, Dunn D. Free HIV self-test for identification and linkage to care of previously undetected HIV infection in men who have sex with men in England and Wales (SELPHI): an open-label, internet-based, randomised controlled trial. Lancet HIV. 2022;9(12):e838-e847.

Dunn DT, Glidden DV, Stirrup OT, McCormack S. The averted infections ratio: a novel measure of effectiveness of experimental HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis agents. Lancet HIV. 2018; 5:e329-e334.

Dunn DT, Copas AJ, Brocklehurst P. Superiority and non-inferiority: two sides of the same coin? Trials. 2018;19(1):499

McCormack S, Dunn DT, Desai M, Dolling DI, Gafos M, Gilson R, et al. Pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent the acquisition of HIV-1 infection (PROUD): effectiveness results from the pilot phase of a pragmatic open-label randomised trial. Lancet 2016; 387:53-60.

Paton NI, Stöhr W, Arenas-Pinto A, Fisher M, Williams I, Johnson M, Orkin C, Chen F, Lee V, Winston A, Gompels M, Fox J, Scott K, Dunn DT; Protease Inhibitor Monotherapy Versus Ongoing Triple Therapy (PIVOT) Trial Team. Protease inhibitor monotherapy for long-term management of HIV infection: a randomised, controlled, open-label, non-inferiority trial. Lancet HIV 2015; 2(10):e417-26

 





Research Interests

  • HIV prevention (particularly pre-exposure prophylaxis and self-testing)

  • Design of COVID-19 vaccine trials

  • HIV drug resistance

  • Models of statistical inference and their influence on clinical decision-making

  • The design/analysis of non-inferiority trials with a highly effective control regimen



Research Areas

 



Related Studies