I am a Lecturer in Statistics in the departments of Public Health & Epidemiology and
Statistics. Previously I’ve worked as Lecturer in Medical Statistics at the University
of London (Guy’s & St.Thomas’s) and as a Research Statistician at the Royal College
of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). From 2003 to 2005 I was employed as Statistical
Consultant at the Haughton Institute for Further Education providing statistical
support to researchers in TCD and the Adelaide & Meath and St. James’s Hospitals.
From 2005-2006 I was employed as Senior Statistician at the National Suicide
Research Foundation.
Research
I particularly enjoy collaborative interdisciplinary research, or to paraphrase the late
J.W. Tukey playing in other peoples’ backyards, and have been fortunate to work with
researchers from a wide variety of medical disciplines from genetics to cardiology and
from paediatrics to age-related health care. These days my primary area of interest is
in the development and evaluation of risk prediction systems that will allow clinicians
to better identify high risk patients. This follows on from my involvement with the
SCORE (Systematic COronary Risk Estimation) study. The SCORE risk management
system has been selected as the new standard in European CVD risk prediction by the
Third Joint European Societies Task Force on CVD Prevention in Clinical Practice.
Currently I’m involved in a number of local and international multi-centre studies
including:
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A European multicentre study of parasuicide examining trends in the rates
of deliberate self-harm (DSH).
A Randomised controlled trial to determine the efficacy of a structured
group interpersonal problem-solving skills training programme as an
intervention for DSH compared with standard care.
The SCORE Plus study that is expanding the SCORE model to include nonfatal event endpoints and additional risk factors such as diabetes.
The HeartScore study to develop electronic interactive risk predictions that
can be tailored to local risk factor data and national mortality statistics.
The PROSPER multi-centre cohort study looking at the impact of
Pravastatin in high risk elderly subjects.
The IBD case control study examining the association between childhood
hygiene, gene environment interactions and the risk of inflammatory bowel
disease.
Teaching
Along with Kathleen O’Sullivan I teach the ST2001 Introduction to Biostatistics
module also teach the ST1051 Introduction to Probability and Statistics module. As
part of my work for the Public Health & Epidemiology Department I presented the
Health Informatics component of the CP3001 module and over the next year will
present various Biostatistics lectures/SPSS labs for medical and public health
students.
Contact
Your best bet is to e-mail me at fitz.tony@gmail.com.
Room 2.49 (ext 1624), Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, Brookfield
Room 2.59 (ext 1569), Department of Statistics, Aras na Laoi.
Recent publications
Panagiotakos DM, Fitzgerald AP, Pitsavos C, Pipilis A, Graham I, Stefanadis C.
Modelling the ten-year risk of fatal cardiovascular disease in Greece: the
HellenicSCORE (a calibration of the SCORE project). Hellenic Journal of Cardiology
2007 (accepted for publication).
Sans S; Fitzgerald AP; Royo D; Conroy R; Graham I. Calibration of the SCORE
cardiovascular risk chart for Spain (in Spanish). Revista Espanola de Cardiologia
2007 (accepted for publication).
Vaida F; Fitzgerald AP; de Gruttola V. Efficient Hybrid EM for Linear and Nonlinear
Mixed Effects Models with Censored Response. Computational Statistics and Data
Analysis 2006 (accepted for publication).
Murray DM; Boylan GB;; Fitzgerald AP; Ryan CA; Murphy BP; Connolly S.
Persistent lactic acidosis in neonatal hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy correlates
with severity of encephalopathy and electrographic seizure burden. Archives of
Diseases in Childhood 2006 (accepted for publication).
McGorrian, C; Fitzgerald, AP; Leong, T; Hand, EB; Graham, IM. Self reported
diabetes predicts risk of cardiovascular death differently in men and women in high
risk European countries: the score project. Eur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil 2006, 13
Supplement 1:S29.
Murray DM; Ryan CA; Boylan G; Fitzgerald AP; Connolly S. Prediction of
asphyxiated neonates: correlation with continuous video-EEG monitoring. Pediatrics
2006, 118, (1), 41-46.
Ryan, A. M.; Rowley, S. P.; Fitzgerald, A. P.; Ravi, N.; Reynolds, J. V.,
Adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus and gastric cardia: Male preponderance in
association with obesity. Eur J Cancer 2006, 42, (8), 1151-1158.
O'Halloran, A. M.; Curtin, R.; O'Connor, F.; Dooley, M.; Fitzgerald, AP.; O'Brien, J. K.;
Fitzgerald, D. J.; Shields, D. C., The impact of genetic variation in the region of the
GPIIIa gene, on Pl expression bias and GPIIb/IIIa receptor density in platelets. Br J
Haematol 2006, 132, (4), 494-502.
O'Donnell, S.; Condell, S.; Begley, C.; Fitzgerald, AP., Prehospital care pathway
delays: gender and myocardial infarction. J Adv Nurs 2006, 53, (3), 268-76.
Brophy, K.; Ryan, A. W.; Thornton, J. M.; Abuzakouk, M.; Fitzgerald, A. P.;
McLoughlin, R. M.; O'Morain, C.; Kennedy, N. P.; Stevens, F. M.; Feighery, C.;
Kelleher, D.; McManus, R., Haplotypes in the CTLA4 region are associated with
coeliac disease in the Irish population. Genes Immun 2006, 7, (1), 19-26.
O'Donnell, S.; Condell, S.; Begley, C.; Fitzgerald, A.P.., In-hospital care pathway
delays: gender and myocardial infarction. J Adv Nurs 2005, 52, (1), 14-21.
O'Callaghan, P. A.; Fitzgerald, A.P.; Fogarty, J.; Gaffney, P.; Hanbidge, M.; Boran,
G.; Enright, H.; Murphy, J.; McCarthy, B.; Graham, I. M., New and old cardiovascular
risk factors: C-reactive protein, homocysteine, cysteine and von Willebrand factor
increase risk, especially in smokers. Eur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil 2005, 12, (6),
542-7.
Molony, C. M. & Fitzgerald, A. P. (joint first author); Shields, D. C., Overdispersion of
allele frequency differences between populations: implications for meta-analyses of
genotypic disease associations. Eur J Hum Genet 2005, 13, (1), 79-85.
Griffin, E.; Martin, M.; Fitzgerald, A.P.; O'Neill, D., Gait abnormalities in older people-comparison of inter-professional assessment. Ir Med J 2005, 98, (6), 169-70.
Keil U; Fitzgerald AP; Gohlke H; Wellmann J; Hense HW. Risk Stratification of
Cardiovascular Diseases in Primary Prevention – The New SCORE-Deutschland
Risk Charts. Deutsches Ärzteblatt July 2005.
Conference Presentations
Regional variation in risk prediction for cardiovascular mortality in Europe: The
Swedish, German, Belgian and Greek examples. EUROPREVENT (Athens, May);
invited speaker.
The SCORE and HeartSCORE projects. The 10th Jubilee International Congress of
the Polish Cardiac Society (Gdansk, September); invited speaker.