Epidemiology of asthma, allergic disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease, genetic epidemiology, health effects of indoor, outdoor air pollution.

During the 1990s, David Strachanstudied the health effects of outdoor air pollution, indoor air quality and chronic infections. In 1999, he was awarded the European Respiratory Society prize for paediatric respiratory research in Europe (jointly with Professor Derek Cook), for systematic reviews of the effects of parental smoking on health of children.

More recently, he has explored lifecourse influences on health in the British 1958 birth cohort, and developed a nationally representative DNA collection, based on this cohort, for use in genetic epidemiology. His current international collaborations are investigating combinations of genetic and environmental influences on asthma and allergy.

He was associate editor of Thorax from 1996 to 2006 and has served on several advisory committees of the UK Department of Health, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.