Research

Center faculty reflect diverse backgrounds and skillsets as well as active areas of research; however, the Center’s efforts coalesce around six core areas as described below.

Advanced Methods

One of the biggest challenges in pharmacoepidemiology is discerning the true nature of an association between an exposure and outcome.  The Center supports numerous methods experts who are working on solving fundamental problems, such as time-varying confounding, that plague many analyses of drug safety or effectiveness. 

Comparative Effectiveness

For stakeholders to make informed decisions about prescription drug use, they need timely evidence about the comparative effectiveness of therapies and their alternatives, including their risks and benefits. Incomplete evidence contributes to overuse of some therapies, underuse of others, and risky prescribing. The Center supports innovative research into these topics.

Drug Safety

Adverse effects of medicines are often learned only after the therapies have been on the market and used broadly. Center investigators are working to develop new methods for identifying risk, predicting the likelihood of a risky medication or drug combination, and working to protect the public from excessive exposure to risky medications.

Global Medicines

Ensuring adequate access and affordability of prescription medicines poses major and unique challenges for countries around the world. These challenges are particularly salient in emerging economies that account for an increasing proportion of the worlds’ population and pharmaceutical expenditures. Center investigators focus on how public policy can be optimized to maximize global drug availability and access.

Policy Analyses

Complex and dynamic policies govern prescription drug regulation. Policy-makers are challenged with maximizing innovation while protecting public health, and of developing payment policies that promote evidence-based usage. Center investigators evaluate regulatory policies to provide policy-makers with information to continually optimize pharmaceutical regulation.

Pharmacoeconomics

Pharmacoeconomics provides an important lens through which to consider the costs, and returns, of modern medicines.  Escalating pharmaceutical expenditures make these matters all the more urgent.  Our Center faculty include nationally renowned leaders who have been identifying new methods to examine cost-effectiveness and policy solutions to maximize the value that medicines provide.