Recognition August 2016


Dr. Nelson gives invited talk to international statistics meeting

Jennifer Nelson, PhD, Group Health Research Institute (GHRI) senior investigator and director of biostatistics, was invited to address the annual Joint Statistical Meeting in Chicago on August 3. Dr. Nelson’s talk, Generating Policy-Relevant Statistical Evidence in Sequentially Monitored Vaccine and Drug Safety Evaluations Using Electronic Health Record Data, was chosen for promotion to the science and health policy media. Collaborators on the work from GHRI are Andrea J. Cook, PhD; Robert Wellman, MS; and Denise Boudreau, PhD. Other collaborators are Ram Tiwari, PhD, Michael Nguyen, MD, Estelle Russek-Cohen, PhD, and Azadeh Shoaibi, U.S. Food and Drug Administration; and Tracey Marsh, University of Washington (UW).

Expertise from SIMBA and LINCC projects adds to workshop

GHRI was well represented at a July community workshop on patient engagement by CERTAIN, Washington state’s learning health care system network. Attendees included investigators from two GHRI projects funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Contributing to discussions on patient-researcher partnerships were, from the GHRI SIMBA project, patient partners Dianne Johnson and Mary Bush, project manager Susan Brandzel, MPH, and study leader Karen J. Wernli, PhD; and from the GHRI LINCC project, patient co-investigators Janice Tufte and Michele Robbins, and study leader Clarissa Hsu, PhD. The workshop was part of the PCORI-funded project INSPIRE, led by the UW’s Danielle Lavallee, PhD, PharmD.

Dr. Larson travels to London for Lancet commission on dementia

Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH, GHRI senior investigator and Group Health vice president for research, traveled to the United Kingdom in July to work with the journal The Lancet. Dr. Larson and other experts on aging and dementia are preparing a comprehensive report on Alzheimer disease and dementia. The report will be published in the journal this fall, and Dr. Larson is specifically contributing to a section on resilience to age-related cognitive changes. Along with a group of international experts, he is also contributing to the overall contents of the report. Understanding resilience to dementia and cognitive decline is a new aim of the long-running Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study.