Pharmacoepidemiology
At Penn, we define pharmacoepidemiology as the study of the use and effects of drugs in populations. Pharmacoepidemiology focuses heavily on questions of pharmacodynamics, concentrating on clinical patient outcomes and on therapeutics (i.e., appropriate use of drugs), and to a lesser extent on pharmacokinetics. Thus, pharmacoepidemiology at Penn applies the research methods of clinical epidemiology (e.g., randomized trials, cohort studies, case-control studies) to the content area of pharmacology (e.g., determinants of beneficial and adverse drug effects, effects of genetic variation on drug effect, dose-response relationships, duration-response relationships, clinical effects of potential drug-drug interactions, effects of non-adherence). As well, pharmacoepidemiology conducts and evaluates programmatic efforts to improve medication use on a population basis.
The CCEB is a pioneer in the development and use of large administrative and medical record databases for etiologic studies and houses one of the premier academic pharmacoepidemiology programs in the world. Recent projects include an NCI Program Project Grant on Molecular Susceptibility to Hormone-Induced Cancers, and awards from the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality for a Center for Research and Education on Therapeutics (CERTs), a Center of Excellence for Patient Safety Research and Practice, and a center within the Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions about Effectiveness (DEcIDE) Network.
Multiple faculty investigators with primary appointments in the CCEB currently receive public and private funding in support of pharmacoepidemiologic studies. Many others are co-investigators and collaborators. In addition, multiple faculty affiliated with the CCEB hold appointments in the pharmaceutical industry. These individuals are identified below:
Program Members
- Brian L. Strom, MD, MPH (group leader)
- Kurt Barnhart, MD, MSCE
- Warren Bilker, PhD
- Greg Bisson, MD, MSCE
- Susan Coffin, MD, MPH
- Jalpa Doshi, PhD
- John T. Farrar, MD, PhD
- Leanne Gasink, MD, MSCE
- Joel Gelfand, MD, MSCE
- Henry Glick, PhD
- Robert Gross, MD, MSCE
- Sean Hennessy, PharmD, PhD
- Stephen E. Kimmel, MD, MSCE
- Ebbing Lautenbach, MD, MPH, MSCE
- James D. Lewis, MD, MSCE
- Darren Linkin, MD, MSCE
- A. Russell Localio, JD, MPH, PhD
- David Margolis, MD, PhD
- Joshua Metlay, MD, PhD
- Nkuchia M'ikanatha, DrPH, MPH
- Eric Pifer, MD
- Mary Sammel, ScD
- Samir Shah, MD, MSCE
- Mark Weiner, MD
- Yu-Xiao Yang, MD, MSCE
- Theoklis Zaoutis, MD, MSCE
