SSM ECRs featuring… Dr Keren Papier!

Dr Keren Papier is a Nutritional Epidemiologist at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford and a Postdoctoral Associate at St Cross College.

Dr Keren Papier

University of Oxford

Nutritional Epidemiologist

SSM member since: 2021

Topics of interest: diet, global health, chronic disease epidemiology

What inspired you to pursue a career in public health?
Growing up in many countries exposed me to different food cultures and sparked my interest in how different diets affect health from a young age. This interest turned into a passion for preventing nutrition-related diseases in populations around the world through public health research.

What excites you about working in research now?
What excites me about working in research now is that in addition to having large-scale epidemiological studies from high income countries, information is now also being collected in low and middle-income countries. Taken together, these data can help build a better understanding of the burden of nutrition-related diseases around the world and identify what factors affect health in different populations and settings.

What area of social medicine/public health are you interested in?
I am interested in public health nutrition, chronic disease epidemiology, and global health. More specifically, I am interested in identifying modifiable disease risk-factors and assessing their impact on population health in different settings, and estimating the burden of nutrition-related diseases in different populations.

Can you tell us a bit about a project you’re working on now?
In my current role with the LEAP Project (Livestock, Environment and People), in the Cancer Epidemiology Unit, at the University of Oxford, I investigate the various health risks associated with consuming or not consuming animal-sourced foods (e.g. meat) in large population-based cohorts.

What do you hope this will lead to?
I hope this work will help determine the overall health impacts of consuming and reducing animal-sourced foods in the diet, and inform public health recommendations around animal-sourced foods and plant-based diets.

To keep up to date with Keren, follow her on Twitter @KerenPapier or get in touch via email.

SSM ECR features is a new blog series that celebrates early career researchers. Each month we meet a member we admire, learn more about their work and find out what and who inspires them. To find out more visit socsocmed.org.uk/blog or email ecr.ssm@gmail.com.