Nicola Motterlini

Nicola Motterlini's picture
Title: 
Mr. Nicola Motterlini, Stat.Sci.D.
Affiliation: 
RCSI
Biography: 

Position: Research Fellow

Personal
Nicola was a statistician and PhD student at the HRB Centre for Primary Care. He joined the Centre in December 2009. His primary training was in statistical sciences and informatics at the University of Milan, Italy, where he obtained his degrees in 2003 and 2005.

Before joining the HRB Centre, Nicola worked at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research (IRFMN) in Italy, as a biomedical research institute. From 2004 to 2007, he worked as a research statistician and performed data management and statistical analyses at the IRFMN’s Centre for Health Economics “Angelo e Angela Valenti” (CESAV). He was primarily involved in the evaluation of health care programmes (i.e., assessment of costs and benefits of alternative health care treatments and programmes) and comparative health policy analyses (i.e., study of foreign health care systems particularly aimed at identifying possible innovations for European countries).

In 2007, he moved to the Biostatistics Laboratory of the Renal Medicine Department (IRFMN) where he provided methodological, data management and statistical support in clinical biostatistical and epidemiological research for the elaboration and analyses of observational and multicentre randomised clinical trials (RCTs) in the fields of nephrology, diabetology and cardio-vascular medicine.

Research
Nicola had analytical and research expertise in healthcare, health economics, biomedical and clinical sciences, in particular, with specific interests in statistical methodology, data analyses and modelling (e.g., survival analyses, logistic regression, fractional polynomial models, etc.).

Nicola provided methodological, data management and statistical support for the elaboration and analyses of the research database on methadone maintenance treatment. He was also involved in the development of clinical prediction rules for use within primary care settings as well as planning and supporting RCTs to evaluate ICT interventions in the form of computer-based clinical decisions support systems (CDSSs), decision aids and self management programmes. His interests included meta-analyses and regression modelling for systematic reviews of common clinical conditions in relation to the diagnostic accuracy of symptoms, signs and diagnostic tests.

In relation to the doctoral research, Nicola was interested in the application of multi-level modelling to explain unwarranted variations in practice in Ireland.

Nicola Motterlini passed away at his home in Bergamo, Italy in November 2012 after a long illness. His work and contribution with the HRB Centre was both invaluable and recognised. He will be missed by his work colleagues and friends.

In Memoriam - Nicola Motterlini (1979 - 2012) from the Guardian newspaper