John Busby

Dr. John Busby is a Senior Lecturer in Medical Statistics within the Centre for Public Health at Queen's University Belfast's School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences. He serves as the lead statistician for the UK Severe Asthma Registry, the largest registry of its kind worldwide, and contributes to international collaborations including the International Severe Asthma Registry (ISAR).

His research focuses on severe asthma epidemiology with particular emphasis on:

• Exploring ethnic, socioeconomic and gender-based disparities in UK severe asthma care and outcomes
• Understanding how treatment can be optimized in severe asthma
• Geographic variations in healthcare processes and outcomes
• Social determinants of disease

Dr. Busby's recent work has centered on biologic therapies for severe asthma, examining treatment effectiveness, mechanisms of failure, clinical remission, and the impact of factors like obesity on treatment response. His research utilizes advanced statistical methodologies to analyze large datasets from registries including the UK Severe Asthma Registry and the Optimum Patient Care Research Database (OPCRD).

With 101 research outputs to date and growing publication activity (16 in 2023, 16 in 2024, and 14 in 2025), his work has been published in high-impact journals including the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Clinical & Experimental Allergy, and The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, and has received attention from news outlets, academic bloggers, and social media platforms.

Dr. Busby is actively involved in mentoring and is currently accepting PhD students with statistical or clinical backgrounds interested in pursuing research in his areas of expertise.