Kacie Bogar, MS
Kacie Bogar, MS
For almost three years, Kacie Bogar, MS has served as a Research Project Manager for the Center for Real-World Effectiveness and Safety of Therapeutics (CREST) and the Epidemiology division in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics. Within this role she supports and collaborates with CREST investigators to produce research in the areas of drug-drug interactions, stimulant overdose trends, and environmental pharmacoepidemiology.
Bogar earned a Master of Science in Experimental Psychology from Saint Joseph’s University (2020) and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Lehigh University (2018). She was nominated by her colleagues to receive a DBEI Community All-Star Award in 2023 for her exceptional dedication and service. We recently asked her to share her experience being a part of the DBEI community.
Can you tell us about the current research you’re involved in and what inspired you to pursue this area?
Two areas of research that I’m currently involved in and find most interesting are environmental pharmacoepidmiology and the medication treatment gap for individuals with opioid use disorder.
Environmental pharmacoepi is a newer but quickly growing discipline that takes environmental factors such as air pollution or extreme temperatures into consideration when looking at things like drug safety. For example, we know that extreme temperatures and heat waves—which are becoming more common due to climate change—are especially hard on vulnerable populations like the elderly and those with chronic health conditions. These same populations often take medications, all of which carry their own risk profile. Looking at this from an environmental pharmacoepi lens, we could ask if something like high temperatures and heat stress might make users of certain medications more or less likely to experience adverse health outcomes.
The MOUD (Medications for Opioid Use Disorder) treatment gap for individuals with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is of particular interest to me for a multitude of reasons. The gap is staggering, with an estimated 75% or more of individuals with OUD not receiving any MOUD, despite this being a recommended first line treatment for OUD. The opioid crisis is also an issue that hits close to home here in our Philadelphia community. I’m interested in the underlying causes of this treatment gap, as well as policy interventions that can be used to increase MOUD access.
How does your work in the Epidemiology division and CREST intersect with real-world challenges?
A lot of CREST research explores questions around drug interactions and drug safety, and our data often come from Medicare and/or Medicaid populations. Medicare primarily serves individuals age 65+, and concurrent use of multiple medications is really common in this population. This trend is called polypharmacy, and it means that older individuals are at higher risk of potentially harmful drug interactions. By using large data sets that come from healthcare claims, we can identify “signals” for potential drug interactions that might make someone more likely to experience adverse health outcomes like a heart attack or sustain unintentional injuries from a fall or car accident. High-powered studies like ours that use real-world evidence can be a valuable tool for generating hypotheses and identifying potential drug-drug interactions that should be further studied.
What do you find most rewarding about working in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics?
I appreciate the work-life balance I have in this role, as well as the support I receive to attend conferences and take advantage of professional development opportunities. For example, I was recently in Berlin for the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE) annual conference, and I’m soon starting an Op-Ed Writing for Health Policy course through the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI).
Can you share a significant recent project, publication, or professional recognition that you are particularly proud of contributing to or achieving?
Not a particular project or publication, but I’d say I’m very proud of how much I’ve learned about pharmacoepidemiology over the past few years. I came into this role with a research and public health background, but I had no specialized training in pharmacoepi, and unlike most of my colleagues I have no pharmacy background. I attended my first ISPE conference in 2022 a few months after starting in this role, and admittedly, a lot of the sessions were over my head. I felt proud that at this year’s ISPE conference in Berlin, I could hold my own and engage with the content presented at a variety of sessions.
What advice would you give to students or early-career professionals in your field?
Working in academia—especially in research—is often very self-directed. If you want your career to go in a certain direction, it may require doing some leg work to seek out or even create the kinds of opportunities you want. For example, I’m really interested in health policy. My current role and research aren’t particularly policy oriented, but I’ve taken the initiative to find other ways to engage with health policy work and gain knowledge about this field. I spend time reading op-eds and books on health policy topics that interest me, and sometimes I reach out to the authors to connect and learn more. I also attend a lot of LDI talks and other guest lectures on campus that interest me. A benefit to working (or being a student) at Penn is that you are always within arms reach of a wide range of subject matter experts, so you can almost always find people who share your interests.
What is an interest or pastime that you enjoy outside of academia?
I love music and enjoy attending concerts around Philly.