Staff Profile

Sonia is an Evidence Synthesis/Horizon Scanning Specialist at the NIHR Innovation Observatory. Sonia studied Library and Information Science at the Universities of Leon and Granada in Spain. She then proceeded to work as an Information Scientist in a number of different organizations. Her interest in evidence-based medicine and research synthesis methodologies led her to complete an MSc in Applied Health Research at the University of York. Before the completion of her master’s degree she took up a post as systematic reviewer for a consultancy company before moving to work for Newcastle University in April 2017.

 

Sonia is interested in exploring further horizon scanning methods, she is particularly keen on the development of a predictive model for horizon scanning that can detect health technologies in clinical development as well as factors that contribute to the uncertainty of progression in their regulatory pathway. She refers to these factors as success factors. She is about to start a PhD with Newcastle University on that topic.

• Arber M, Garcia S, Veale T, Edwards M, Shaw A, Glanville J. Sensitivity of a Search Filter Designed to Identify Studies Reporting Health State Utility Values. Poster presented at: 12th Annual Meeting of the Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi); 2015 June 15 - June 17; Oslo, Norway. 

• Co-author of a systematic review on social determinants of health in the EU region to inform a review on health inequalities in the WHO European Region chaired by Sir Michael Marmot and funded by DG-SANCO. Bambra C, Ells L, Garcia S, Wilkinson J. Interim report on the health Inequalities in the European Regions: a review of social determinants of health.

• Co-author of a systematic review on type II diabetes for a large pharmaceutical company.

• O’Connor S, Hanlon P, Catherine A. O’Donnell Sonia Garcia, Julie Glanville and Frances S. Mair. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making (2016) 16:120. DOI 10.1186/s12911-016-0359-3

• O'Connor S, Hanlon P, O'Donnell CA, Garcia S, Glanville J, Mair FS. Barriers and facilitators to patient and public engagement and recruitment to digital health interventions: protocol of a systematic review of qualitative studies. BMJ open. 2016 Sep 1;6(9):e010895.

• Arber M, Garcia S, Veale T, Edwards M, Shaw A, Glanville JM. Performance of Ovid MEDLINE search filters to identify health state utility studies. International journal of technology assessment in health care. 2017;33(4):472-80.

• Co-author of poster presented at the University of Manchester. Using text-mining in qualitative systematic review of digital health engagement and recruitment-how to search and prioritise large text datasets. Garcia S, brewer S, O’Connor S, S Mair F, Glanville J.

• Sonia Garcia Gonzalez-Moral, Kate Pikett, Catriona McDaid. What is the effectiveness of social prescribing interventions in older adults for physical and mental well being? A systematic review. PROSPERO protocol.

• Co-Author of a large systematic review of effect, burden of disease and economic evaluation on PKU for a pharmaceutical company in support of their submission to NICE TA process.

• Imagine Series on Dementia with Lewy bodies. Oral presentation. Cochrane Colloquium. Edinburgh 2018.

Horizon Scanning for the NICE HTA process. Lecture taught at the MSc in Applied Health Research and Health Economics. University of Birmingham.