Diana Kuh

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Diana Jane Lewin Kuh
Alma mater University of Cambridge
London School of Economics
Scientific career
Institutions University College London
Thesis Assessing the influence of early life on adult health  (1993)

Diana Jane Lewin Kuh is a British epidemiologist who is an emeritus professor of Life Course Epidemiology at University College London. She was formerly Scientific Director of the National Survey of Health and Development and the founding Director of the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing. Kuh was named as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2018 and 2020 [1] and as a top female scientist by Research.com in 2024. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Kuh [3] [4] studied economics at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 1974. She moved to the University of Exeter in 1975, where she worked in the Operational Research Unit using mainframe computer models to allocate funding for healthcare. She then joined the Paediatric Research Unit at Exeter, as a research fellow, under Dr Frederic Brimblecombe, where she investigated the health needs of adolescents and young adults with disabilities. [5]

Research and career

In 1987, Kuh started working on the National Survey of Health and Development, a birth cohort study that followed over 5,000 participants from their births in one week in March 1946. She became Scientific Director of the National Survey of Health and Development in 2007. [6] Her first work using the cohort study looked to understand the origins of cardiovascular disease and the contributions of early exposure. This became the basis of her doctoral research, earning a PhD at London School of Economics in 1993. [7]

Kuh became interested in women's health in the early nineties. She took the opportunity to understand the menopause transition from data collected from female study members when they turned 43 years old, and annually between 47 and 54 years. Her research showed that breastfeeding, better socioeconomic circumstances and higher cognitive ability children correlated with later menopause. [8] She went on to show the relationship between menopause, bone density and cardiovascular function. [8] She worked with Gita Mishra to study premature and early menopause. Together they showed that women with recurrent risk miscarriages were more likely to experience menopause early, and that Asian women faced a greater risk than other ethnicities. She also showed that later menopause was slightly beneficial to memory. [9] Kuh co-wrote A Life Course Approach to Women's Health, [10] which explored the long-term influence of foetal, childhood and younger adult experiences on later health.

Kuh was instrumental in creating and advancing the field of life course epidemiology in over 500 publications. She co-edited A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology, first published in 1997, and now in its third edition. [11] She also co-edited A life course approach to healthy ageing. [12] Her research showed that early life disadvantage has a profound impact on adult health and ageing. This included musculoskeletal ageing: for example, childhood adversity, lower birthweight, and earlier puberty were persistently associated with lower adult grip strength. [13]

She was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015. [14]

Selected publications

References

  1. ↑ "Highly Cited Researchers | Clarivate". clarivate.com. 13 November 2024. Retrieved 23 April 2025.
  2. ↑ https://research.com/scientists-rankings/best-female-scientists
  3. ↑ Kuh, Diana (1 November 2016). "From paediatrics to geriatrics: a life course perspective on the MRC National Survey of Health and Development". European Journal of Epidemiology. 31 (11): 1069–1079. doi:10.1007/s10654-016-0214-y. ISSN   1573-7284. PMC   5206253 . PMID   28004211.
  4. ↑ shanjokgurung (7 April 2023). "Interview: Diana Kuh". Reproductive Health. ISSN   2059-450X.
  5. ↑ Brimblecombe, F. S.; Kuh, D. L.; Lawrence, C. J.; Smith, R. C. (4 October 1986). "Role of general practitioners in the care of disabled young adults". Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 293 (6551): 859–860. doi:10.1136/bmj.293.6551.859. ISSN   0267-0623. PMC   1341641 . PMID   2945615.
  6. ↑ UCL (28 October 2022). "UCL academics named as top female scientists". UCL Population Health Sciences. Retrieved 28 April 2025.
  7. ↑ "Assessing the influence of early life on adult health | WorldCat.org". search.worldcat.org. Retrieved 29 September 2024.
  8. 1 2 shanjokgurung (7 April 2023). "Interview: Diana Kuh". Reproductive Health. ISSN   2059-450X.
  9. ↑ "Later menopause linked with benefit to memory | Figo". www.figo.org. 12 April 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2024.
  10. ↑ D Mishra, Gita; Kuh, Diana; Hardy, Rebecca, eds. (2023). A life course approach to women's health, 2e. Life course approach adult health - paper (2 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-286464-2.
  11. ↑ Kuh, Diana; Susser, Ezra; M. Blodgett, Joanna; Ben-Shlomo, Yoav, eds. (2025). A life course approach to the epidemiology of chronic diseases and ageing. Life course approach to adult health (3 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-889596-1.
  12. ↑ Kuh, Diana; Cooper, Rachel; Hardy, Rebecca; Richards, Marcus; Ben-Shlomo, Yoav, eds. (2014). A life course approach to healthy ageing. Life course approach to adult health series (First ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-965651-6. OCLC   856981138.
  13. ↑ Kuh, Diana; Hardy, Rebecca; Blodgett, Joanna M.; Cooper, Rachel (1 May 2019). "Developmental factors associated with decline in grip strength from midlife to old age: a British birth cohort study". BMJ Open. 9 (5) e025755. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2018-025755. ISSN   2044-6055. PMC   6528009 . PMID   31072852.
  14. ↑ "Fellow: Professor Diana Kuh FMedSci". Academy of Medical Sciences . Retrieved 6 October 2024.
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