Dr Dominik Zenner, MA MSc FHEA MD MRCGP FFPH

Profile

I have a background in infectious disease epidemiology and migration health, and am also a General Practitioner in East London.

Before joining QMUL, I worked as Senior Migration Health Advisor for the Regional Office for the EEA, the EU and NATO of the International Organization for Migration (the UN Migration Agency), where I was responsible for the development, co-ordination, and supervision of migration health program activities, strategies and priority setting in the EU and EEA area in coordination with national, regional and international partners, agencies and organisations.

Previously, I worked as consultant epidemiologist and head of TB screening in the national TB section in Public Health England, UK. I helped develop and implement the TB strategy for England, including leading the roll-out of the national latent TB screening programme, the health aspects of the UK refugee programme and the UK pre-entry TB screening programme. I have a demonstrated academic and strategic interest in infectious disease epidemiology and migration health, including several high impact publications and several prizes. My work has informed national and international policy, including ECDC and WHO guidelines.

I read medicine at the University of Cologne, Germany, where I obtained my medical degree and later my medical doctorate. I am an alumnus from the University of East Anglia (MA International Relations and Development Studies) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (MSc Public health). I am a member of the Royal College of General Practitioners and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health.

Research

Research Interests:

MENA Migrant Health. Transforming data collection and surveillance to drive migrant health research, care and policy. Funding through Foundation “la Caixa”/ Mobility – Global Medicine and Health Research programme. I am collaborator and PhD supervisor.

TARGET-ID. Undiagnosed HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C in primary care: Targeted testing using digital technology to increase identification and improve care pathways for higher risk and underserved communities. I am collaborator.

COVER-ME. Tackling COVID vaccine hesitancy in underserved at-risk populations including persons with minority ethnicity (ME) backgrounds in East London: developing and evaluating community-based interventions. I am Principal Investigator.

E-DETECT TB: early Detection and Integrated Management of Tuberculosis in Europe. Funding: European Commission. Consortium lead: UCL, I am co-investigator and work package lead.

NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Respiratory Infections. Funding: NIHR. Consortium Lead Imperial College, I am co-investigator and co-theme lead for TB screening.

RID-TB- Research to Improve the Detection and treatment of latent tuberculosis infection. Funding NIHR. Consortium lead UCL, I am co-investigator.

CATAPULT. Cluster-randomised trial of LTBI treatment in primary care. Funding Barts Charity. Consortium lead QMUL, I am co-investigator.

Million Migrants study of healthcare and mortality outcomes in non-EU migrants and refugees to England. Funding Wellcome Trust. Consortium lead UCL, I am co-investigator.

Uptake, effectiveness and acceptability of routine screening of pregnant migrants for latent tuberculosis infection in antenatal care: a feasibility study. Funding NIHR. Consortium lead QMUL, I am co-investigator. 

Transmission-dynamic health-economic analysis of the cost-effectiveness of testing and treating latent TB infection (LTBI) and active TB disease in the UK. Funding NIHR. Consortium lead Imperial College, I am co-investigator. 

Publications

Please click through to see a complete list of Dominik's publications.

Featured publications

Zenner D, Brals D, Nederby-Öhd J, et al. Drivers determining TB disease screening yield in four European screening programmes: a comparative analysis. European Respiratory Journal 2023; published online Jan 1. DOI:10.1183/13993003.02396-2022.

Conroy O, Wurie F, Collin SM, Edmunds M, de Vries G, Lönnroth K, Abubakar I, Anderson SR, Zenner D. Barriers and enablers to implementing tuberculosis control strategies in EU and European Economic Area countries: a systematic review. The Lancet Infectious Diseases 2021; 21: e272–e280.

Maynard-Smith L, Brown CS, Harris RJ, Hodkinson P, Tamne S, Anderson SR, Zenner D. Air-travel related TB incident follow up - effectiveness and outcomes: a systematic review. Eur Respir J 2020.

Berrocal-Almanza LC, Harris R, Lalor MK, Muzyamba MC, Were J, O’Connell A-M, Mirza A, Kon O-M, Lalvani A, Zenner D. Effectiveness of pre-entry active tuberculosis and post-entry latent tuberculosis screening in new entrants to the UK: a retrospective, population-based cohort study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 2019.

Crawshaw AF, Pareek M, Were J, Schillinger S, Gorbacheva O, Wickramage KP, Mandal S, Delpech V, Gill N, Kirkbride H, Zenner D. Infectious disease testing of UK-bound refugees: a population-based, cross-sectional study. BMC Medicine. 2018.

Zenner D, Beer N, Harris RJ, Lipman MC, Stagg HR, van der Werf MJ. Treatment of Latent Tuberculosis Infection: An Updated Network Meta-analysis. Ann Intern Med. 2017 Aug 15;167(4):248–55.

Supervision

Iona Hindes. PhD student. Preterm birth during COVID-19 lockdowns: a mixed methods approach to investigate the determinants of the observed change in rates. NIHR-SPCR studentship

Marcello Scopazzini. PhD student. Tuberculosis and the heart: determining the burden and natural history of cardiac pathology at TB diagnosis in a high HIV-prevalence region in Zambia. (The TB-HEART Studies). Wellcome Trust funded.

Taha Matoug. PhD Student. Development and Implementation of a digital tool to promote migrant-sensitive Tuberculosis Control Programmes and Policies in Tunesia. Funded through Foundation “la Caixa”/ Mobility – Global Medicine and Health Research programme

Anissa Ouahchi Hamdouni (PhD Student). Transforming Data Collection and Surveillance around maternal and neonatal Health among Migrants in the MENA Region. Funded through Foundation “la Caixa”/ Mobility – Global Medicine and Health Research programme.

Adam Harvey-Sullivan (Academic Clinical Fellow). Inequalities in cancer diagnosis for migrants: a systematic review.

QM Training lead for the NIHR School of Primary Care Research.