Biography

Dr Johanna Feary graduated in medicine from the University of Nottingham and initially worked in the West Midlands before moving to London to complete her specialist respiratory training at a number of hospitals including St George’s Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital and Royal Brompton Hospital. She has worked in the field of occupational lung disease since 2014.

She has a master's degree in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her PhD thesis, awarded by the University of Nottingham, was in the field of asthma epidemiology, specifically the association between environmental exposures and asthma and atopy.  

Areas of expertise 

Dr Feary is an academic consultant in occupational lung disease and holds an honorary senior lecturer post in the department of Respiratory Epidemiology and Occupational Disease at Imperial College London. She also works in the severe asthma clinic at Royal Brompton Hospital. 

The occupational lung disease service at the Royal Brompton Hospital is the oldest and busiest service of its kind in the UK. 

Dr Feary’s expertise includes the assessment, investigation and management of people with occupational lung disease and of those with severe and difficult to control asthma. She is passionate about increasing the profile of occupational lung diseases in the UK. 

Research interests

Dr Feary's research interests focus mainly on the causes and distribution of occupational asthma and other occupational lung diseases.

As part of an NIHR post-doctoral fellowship, Dr Feary carried out a large epidemiological study to evaluate the contemporary risks associated with laboratory animal allergy, a form of occupational asthma.

She is currently undertaking a Colt Foundation funded study into identifying the causes of hypersensitivity pneumonitis. 

Teaching and lecturing

Dr Feary has spoken at many national and international courses and study days on her specialist subject areas, including:

• International Conference on Occupational Health, Dublin 2018
• MSc in Allergy course  at University of Southampton) 2017, 2018
• 'Health and Wellbeing at Work' conference,  Birmingham 2017
• BTS short course on Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2016
• Association of Service Physicians update (for military personnel) 2016
• Department of Work and Pensions 2016
• Jack Pepys International Meeting on Occupational Lung Disease, Toronto 2016

Dr Feary is an associate editor of the journal Clinical Medicine.

Publications 

Dr Feary has published a number of papers, with a selection detailed below: 

• Feary J, Pinnock H, Cullinan P. Occupational asthma, British Medical Journal
• Feary J, Cullinan P. Curr Opin Allergy Clin Immunol, Laboratory animal allergy: a new world.
• Feary J, Cannon J, Tarzi M, Wincell S, Welch J, Cullinan P. Occupational asthma from a horticultural nematode, Steinernema feltiae, Lancet Respir Med.
• Finney L, Feary J, Leonardi-Bee J, Gordon S, Mortimer K. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in sub Saharan Africa: A systematic review, IJTLD.
• Feary J, Britton J, Leonardi-Bee J. Atopy and Current Intestinal Parasite Infection: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis, Allergy.
• Feary J, Rodrigues LC, Smith CJ, Hubbard RB, Gibson JE. Prevalence of major co-morbidities in people with COPD and incidence of myocardial infarction and stroke: a comprehensive using data from primary care, Thorax.