Profile
Dr Painter is a primary care clinician and researcher and has been working within the Centre for Primary Care since 2023. As part of the Health Equity Evidence Centre she focuses on research to address inequities in primary care health systems. She currently leads two areas of funded work; firstly using electronic health records to explore inequalities in GP consultation rates and secondly evaluating a social needs screening intervention in North East London. She begins an NIHR pre-doctoral fellowship in March 2026 which will support ongoing training in academic skills.
Alongside her academic role, Helena is a salaried GP in Tower Hamlets.
Research
Research Interests:
Improving equitable primary care using data driven approaches. Social determinants of health. Primary care structure and systems.
Publications
Social needs screening in primary care: A tool in the fight for health equity? Public Health in Practice 2024-06 | Journal article
DOI: 10.1016/j.puhip.2024.100466
- Painter;E. Parry;L. McCann; A. Dehn Lunn; J. Ford
Practice list size, workforce composition and performance in English general practice: a latent profile analysis
BMC Primary Care
2024-06-11 | Journal article
DOI: 10.1186/s12875-024-02462-w
Alfred Bornwell Kayira; Helena Painter; Rohini Mathur; John Ford
Persistence and clearance of high‐risk human papillomavirus and cervical dysplasia at 1 year in women living with human immunodeficiency virus: a prospective cohort study
BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology
2021-11 | Journal article
R Luckett; H Painter; MR Hacker; B Simon; A Seiphetlheng; A Erlinger; C Eakin; S Moyo; LT Kyokunda; K Esselen et al.
Increase in disseminated TB during the COVID‐19 pandemic
The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
2021-02-01 | Journal article
- Barrett;H. Painter;A. Rajgopal; D. Keane; L. John; P. Papineni; A. Whittington
Impact of cervicitis on performance of cervical cancer screening using HRHPV testing and visual evaluation in women living with HIV in Botswana
International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics
2020-10 | Journal article
DOI: 10.1002/ijgo.13235
Helena Painter; Adrienne Erlinger; Boikhutso Simon; Chelsea Morroni; Doreen Ramogola‐Masire; Rebecca Luckett
Association between socioeconomic status and diabetic retinopathy in individuals with type 1 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Sebastian-Valles F, de Arenas-Arroyo SN, Simó-Servat O, Simó R, Painter H, et al., BMC Medicine, 2025
Onwunduba A, Wu J, Painter H, Pearce H, Ford J. Variation in the efficiency of English general practices and associated factors: A cross-sectional study of 5069 general practices. European Journal of General Practice 31(1):2580827 31 Dec 2025
Sashika Harasgama; Helen Pearce; Cameron Appel; Liam Loftus; Helena Painter; Isla Kuhn; Justine Karpusheff; Aji Ceesay; John Ford. Artificial intelligence tools for automating evidence synthesis: A scoping review (Preprint). Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2025. doi10.2196/81597
Lucy McCann, Ian Holdroyd, Rowan Emberson, Helena Painter, John Ford. Analysis of orthopaedic private healthcare patterns in England: A potential emerging two-tier system. Public Health in Practice. 2024
Harvey-Sullivan, A., Ali, S., Dhesi, P. Hart, J., Painter, H., Walter, F., Funston, G., Zenner, D. Comparing cancer stage at diagnosis between migrants and non-migrants: a meta-analysis. Br J Cancer (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-024-02896-0
Kayira AB, Painter H, Mathur R, Ford J. Practice list size, workforce composition and performance in English general practice: a latent profile analysis. BMC Prim Care. 2024 Jun 11;25(1):207. doi: 10.1186/s12875-024-02462-w.
Painter H, Parry E, McCann L, Dehn Lunn A, Ford J. Social needs screening in primary care: A tool in the fight for health equity? Public Health Pract (Oxf). 2024 Jan 24;7:100466. doi: 10.1016/j.puhip.2024.100466.
Luckett R, Painter H, Hacker MR, Simon B, Seiphetlheng A, Erlinger A, Eakin C, Moyo S, Kyokunda LT, Esselen K, Feldman S, Morroni C, Ramogola-Masire D. Persistence and clearance of high-risk human papillomavirus and cervical dysplasia at 1 year in women living with human immunodeficiency virus: a prospective cohort study. BJOG. 2021 Nov;128(12):1986-1996.
Gabriel Wallis, Francesca Siracusa, Michael Blank, Helena Painter Javier Sanchez, Kelcy Salinas, Cherifer Mamuyac, Cindy Marudamuthu, Fenella Wrigley, Tumena Corrah, Tommy Rampling, Sarah Logan, Anna Goodman, Deborah Miller, Bhanu Williams, Alastair McGregor, Victoria Parris, Gurjinder Sandhu, Laurence John, Padmasayee Papineni and Ashley Whittington. Experience of a novel community testing programme for COVID-19 in London: Lessons Learnt. Clinical Medicine (London): 20(5), 165-169. 2020 PMID: 32680837
Painter H, Erliner A, Simon B, Morroni C, Ramogola-Masire D, Luckett R. Impact of cervicitis on performance of cervical cancer screening using HRHPV testing and visual evaluation in women living with HIV in Botswana. Int J Gynaecol Obstet. 2020;10.1002/ijgo.13235. doi:10.1002/ijgo.13235 PMID: 32449207