Mostaured Khan is a public health and epidemiology researcher undertaking his PhD at the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, Bristol Medical School. His research explores how psychosocial stressors, immune-inflammatory pathways, and psychiatric disorders interact, to better understand the biological and socio-environmental determinants of mental health. He applies life-course epidemiology, genetic epidemiology, causal inference, and machine learning to large-scale cohort data. Prior to his PhD, he was working as a Research Investigator at icddr,b, Bangladesh, where he worked on maternal and child health, mental health, and health system in LMICs settings. His broad expertise includes epidemiology, biostatistics, and global mental health.
This Danish study of over 3 million people found that having a first-degree relative with depression increased risk 2.35-times, resulting in 15% lifetime risk (compared to 7.8% in the general population). However, 60% of depression cases occurred in people with no affected close relatives, highlighting that family history is only part of the story.
