Christian Brand

• PhD, MSc, MA(Econ), BA(Hons)
• Diplom-Betriebswirt (FH)

Responsibilities / key skills

• Responsible for statistical analysis and reporting, in particular for SIRIS Swiss National Joint Registry (Hip, Knee, Shoulder)
• Member of the SIRIS Expert Group and the Scientific Advisory Board (Hip, Knee, Shoulder)
• Project experience in different countries and sectors: primary care settings, hospitals, social care settings
• Teaching experience of social and medical statistics, research methodology (MSc in Public Health Programme, LSHTM as an assistant professor; MA/MSc programmes in research methods, University of Manchester as a tutor; undergraduate medical school training, Universität Bern as a tutor

Christian joined SwissRDL in November 2018 and his main responsibility is analysis and reporting for arthroplasty registries, in particular the SIRIS Swiss national joint registry (Hip, Knee, Shoulder). Although he initially trained as a social statistician, with a focus on advanced survey statistics, Christian increasingly gravitated towards medical statistics in his professional roles. Before coming to Bern, he was a full-time parent for his baby daughter for nine months (quote: “actually the best job I ever had”) and in the first year at SwissRDL he was still working part-time because of the birth of his son. Before that, Christian was an assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the Department of Health Services Research and Policy. Whilst working at LSHTM he was also affiliated with the Clinical Effectiveness Unit at the Royal College of Surgeons of England where he was the methodologist for the National Oesophago-Gastric Cancer Audit (www.nogca.org.uk). Between 2013 and 2015 Christian was a research fellow at the German Youth Institute in Munich (National Centre for Early Intervention) where he helped design and run the KiD0-3 national prevalence study (www.fruehehilfen.de/forschung-im-nzfh/praevalenz-und-versorgungsforschung). His main contributions related to sampling decisions ensuring national representativeness and the analysis of the complex KiD0-3 dataset. Prior to that, his first professional job post-PhD was as a research associate at what was then called the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the University of Manchester (https://www.pssru40.org.uk/). Christian kept an active collaboration with that unit for several years as an honorary research associate and the bulk of his research output still relates to the various topics covered by the PSSRU, especially integrated services for older people with mental health problems (The Balance of Care).

German – native language

English – fluent

Dutch – semi-fluent

Current position:

• Statistician / methodologist for arthroplasty registries at SwissRDL, Universität Bern

Previous positions

• Assistant Professor (Health Services Research), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine / Royal College of Surgeons; methodologist National Oesophago-Gastric Cancer Audit
• Research fellow, Deutsches Jugendinstitut München; Survey statistician for the national KiD0-3 study on psychosocial burden of families with small children in Germany
• Research associate, Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSU), University of Manchester; Research with a focus on health and social care services for older people with mental health issues and dementia

ResearchGate

Links to publications: ORCiD