The DBEI distinctively brings together expertise in biostatistics, epidemiology and informatics, to advance population-health science.
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2024 Penn Causal Inference Summer Institute
June 10-13, 2024 | JMEC Law Auditorium, Smilow Center for Translational Research (3400 Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia)
Announcements
Jan. 2, 2024. Please join us in welcoming LauraEllen Ashcraft, PhD, MSW to the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics as an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology. Dr. Ashcraft completed a PhD in Social Work (2021) with a focus on implementation science in chronic pain management in primary care settings, and a Master of Social Work with concentrations in community organizing and social administration (2013), from the University of Pittsburgh. Her interest and expertise in implementation science began during her time at the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Critical Care Medicine, where she observed the need for better dissemination and implementation of research findings into practice. During her doctoral program, she established an implementation science training program, which resulted in the publication of two highly cited systemic reviews – on parent empowerment in pediatric healthcare settings and effective dissemination strategies to U.S. policymakers – and her co-founding of the Pittsburgh Dissemination and Implementation Science Collaborative (Pitt DISC) in 2019, which is currently comprised of more than 150 researchers in Pittsburgh and beyond.
In 2021, Dr. Ashcraft joined the University of Pennsylvania as a Senior Research Investigator in the Division of General Internal Medicine. Her current research is funded primarily through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, where she leads implementation science efforts and methodological innovations in two large-scale implementation trials: “Implementing the Age-friendly Health System in VHA: Using Evidence-based Practice to Improve Outcomes in Older Adults” (SAGE QUERI) and “Handoffs and Transitions in Critical Care: Understanding Scalability” (HATRICC-US). Dr. Ashcraft is a co-Investigator and the implementation science methodologist on the recently funded AMETHIST@Penn Implementation Science Hub. She has published a number of impactful peer-reviewed articles (16 manuscripts with 4 as the first author) in high-impact journals, including Implementation Science, Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, and Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
In her new faculty position, Dr. Ashcraft plans to establish an independent, federally-funded implementation science research program and support the development of implementation science infrastructure within the department to ensure the success of current and future research, education, and mentorship initiatives. Her expertise in implementation science and her collaborative research experience in clinical settings, including the University of Pennsylvania Health System and the Veterans Affairs, will be integral to numerous research programs at Penn that involve clinical or community-based epidemiology.
Dec. 4, 2023. The Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics (DBEI) at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and the Master of Public Health (MPH) Program at the University of Pennsylvania have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a new Epidemiology track within the MPH Program. The expansion of the program addresses the need for experts who can approach complex health issues from an epidemiological perspective.
“As we continue to face global public health challenges, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and the opioid epidemic – to name a few timely examples – it is more important than ever to produce public health professionals who possess a deep understanding of the patterns, causes, and effects of health-related issues within populations," said Enrique Schisterman, PhD, the Chair of the DBEI and the Perelman Professor in Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics. Learn more about this exciting new partnership and how to apply to the highly competitive Epidemiology track.
In the News
Joel Gelfand, MD, the James J. Leyden, M.D. Endowed Professor in Clinical Investigation of Dermatology and Epidemiology, and colleagues at Penn found that adults and children with atopic dermatitis (AD) are more likely to develop inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) than their peers. In a new study published in the journal JAMA Dermatology, Dr. Gelfand and his team compared data from more than 409,000 children and 625,000 adults with atopic dermatitis and compared them to more than 1.8 million children and almost 2.7 million adults without the disease. Upon analysis, the scientists reported a “statistically significant” increased risk of incident or new-onset IBD among 44% of children and 34% of adults with atopic dermatitis, compared to the control groups.
"Less work has been done with atopic dermatitis, which is a very common skin disorder, and IBD. Both atopic dermatitis and IBD are diseases with barrier dysfunction, microbiome alterations, and chronic inflammation suggesting commonalities between the two diseases,” said Dr. Gelfand in a recent interview with Medical News Today. According to Dr. Gelfand, these findings are important for better understanding the health trajectories of people with atopic dermatitis.
Elizabeth Nesoff, PhD, MPH discusses her recently published study in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) blog investigating neighborhood features that were correlated with fatal opioid overdoses among the homeless population in New York City. Dr. Nesoff uses these discoveries to make important policy recommendations with respect to targeted outreach and other interventions.
Jeffrey Morris, PhD and Jeffrey Gerber, MD, PhD, MSCE collaborated with researchers to examine measles serostatus among pregnant persons about to give birth and whether rubella serostatus, which is routinely assessed during pregnancy, can serve as a proxy for measles serostatus.
About Us
To understand health and disease today, we need new thinking and novel science —the kind we create when multiple disciplines work together from the ground up. That is why this department has put forward a bold vision in population-health science: a single academic home for biostatistics, epidemiology and informatics.
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