Dr. Aiello received her PhD in Epidemiology from Columbia University-Mailman School of Public Health where she held a training fellowship from the Center for Infectious Disease and Epidemiological Research, sponsored by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Upon completion of her PhD in 2003, Dr. Aiello was the recipient of the Ana C. Gelman award for outstanding achievement and promise in the field of epidemiology. From 2003-2005, Dr. Aiello was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of Michigan-School of Public Health where she studied social determinants of health with a focus on infectious diseases. Prior to her doctoral work, Dr. Aiello was an Emerging Infectious Diseases Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and received her M.S. in Environmental Health Sciences and Engineering from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill-School of Public Health. Dr. Aiello began her current position as Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan-School of Public Health in 2005 as a faculty member of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health. Her research focuses on socioeconomic and race/ethnic disparities in infectious diseases, and the relationship between infection and chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease and dementia. Her work on these topics has been presented at numerous conferences and peer reviewed journals. Dr. Aiello will discuss current research on social determinants of infectious diseases. She will also describe recent advances in measurement of stress-related biomarkers underlying social disparities in health outcomes in the US.
David A. Bennett, MD, is the Robert C. Borwell Professor of Neurological
Sciences and Director of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center at Rush
University Medical Center. His primary research interest is identifying
neurobiologic pathways linking risk factors to the development of
Alzheimer's disease and other age-related neurologic conditions. Dr.
Bennett is principal investigator of several studies funded by the
National Institute on Aging, including the Rush Alzheimer's Disease
Center, the Religious Orders Study, and the Rush Memory and Aging
Project.
Professor Kaplan is a social epidemiologist who has published over 200 papers on the role of behavioral, social, psychological, and socioeconomic factors in health and health inequalities. A major theme in his work is the role of "upstream" and "downstream" factors in maintaining health, delaying disease, and improving function, with an emphasis on the linking of social and biological determinants. He describes his work as focused on the links between "social divides" and "health divides." Most recently, he has been exploring the utility of complex systems approaches in understanding health and health disparities
Research Assistant Professor, Institute for Healthcare Studies, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, and Senior Investigator, Center for Management of Complex Chronic Care, Hines VA Hospital, Hines, Illinois. Dr. Lee's primary research focus is in pulmonary pharmacoepidemiology, he is PI on several AHRQ and VA funded grants.
Polly A. Marchbanks, BSN, MSN, PhD
Dr. Marchbanks is an epidemiologist working in the Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Her PhD is in epidemiology from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. For the past 23 years, Dr. Marchbanks has also been a Commissioned Officer in the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) Nurse Corps, and she currently holds the rank of Captain. She began her career at CDC in 1985 as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) which is a two year program of training and experience in applied epidemiology. Dr. Marchbanks went on to become the first woman and first non-physician to serve as Chief of the EIS during 1991-95. During this time, she led the training of hundreds of EIS officers, and she supervised the administration of hundreds of epidemic aid missions that helped to control serious and urgent public health problems throughout the US and abroad. In addition to this leadership role as Chief of the EIS, Dr. Marchbanks has made multiple contributions in other areas at CDC. As an epidemiologist in the Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, she chaired a working group to establish national surveillance guidelines for genital Chlamydia trachomatis infections which helped make chlamydia a reportable condition in virtually every state. At present, Dr. Marchbanks serves as an epidemiologist and Team Leader of Fertility Epidemiology Studies. In this position, she leads a diverse team of epidemiologists and behavioral scientists who are conducting research on a wide variety of women’s health issues. In 2003, she was awarded CDC’s highest science award, the Charles C. Shepard Award in Epidemiology and Assessment, for her work examining the relationship between oral contraceptives and breast cancer published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Marchbanks has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific publications, and she serves as an Editor of the American Journal of Epidemiology. In March 2007, Dr. Marchbanks was awarded the USPHS Chief Nurse Award for her career accomplishments integrating the two complementary fields of nursing and epidemiology. In May 2007, she was awarded CDC’s highest service award, the William C. Watson, Jr., Medal of Excellence, for her accomplishments in applied reproductive health. In addition to research and mentoring, Dr. Marchbanks enjoys teaching epidemiology internationally. She has taught epidemiology in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Romania, Moldova, the Republic of Georgia, and China. Dr. Marchbanks has been an active member of SER for many years and has coordinated the SER Late-Breaker Session since 1993.
Dr. Markovic is an Associate Professor at University of Pittsburgh, and is Co-PI for a project that examined risk factors for cardiovascular disease in women, comparing self-identified lesbian women (n=504) and heterosexual women (n=580). She is co-director for the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) Health and Wellness Certificate program at the Graduate School of Public Health, teaching the Overview of LGBT Health core course, and Co-Director of the Center for Research on Health and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.
Carlos F. Mendes de Leon, PhD, is a social epidemiologist, Professor in the Departments of Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and Associated Director of the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging. His research focuses on health disparities in disability and related outcomes in older adults, and include a particular interest in the complex interplay between social conditions and biological processes and their consequences in aging humans. He is Principal Investigator of a large, population-based study on social and racial disparities in aging-related disability. An important goal of this study is to increase our understanding of the role of neighborhood environments in health and functional outcomes in older age. After his doctoral training in Preventive Medicine and Community Health at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health of Yale University, New Haven CT. He continued on the faculty at Yale for several more years, before joining the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging in 1996.
Martha Clare Morris, Sc.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and Assistant Provost for Community Research at Rush University Medical Center. She received her doctorate in Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1992. She has extemsive experience
Dr. Ness is Chair, Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health; and Professor of Epidemiology, Medicine, and Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Ness received her MD from Cornell University, her MPH from Columbia University. She earned her black belt in karate in 2005. Dr. Ness has been a member of the ACE Board of Directors since 2004 and Chaired the ACE Policy Committee. Recently, she became the founding Chair of the Joint Policy Committee (JPC) Societies of Epidemiology - the first organization to coordinate joint policy actions among 14 epidemiology societies. The JPC recently completed a national survey of epidemiologists about HIPAA. Dr. Ness is an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Epidemiology, and on the editorial boards of Annals of Epidemiology, and WHO STD Bulletin. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and American College of Epidemiology, and a member of the prestigious American Society for Clinical Investigation, Delta Omega Honorary, and the American Epidemiologic Society (AES). She hosts the 2008 meeting of AES. Other honors include a Leadership Award from the Family Health Council and Laureate Award from the American College of Physicians. A frequent advisor to NIH, CDC, AHRQ, Department of Defense, and universities, she has participated in four Institute of Medicine, National Academies reports in the past 2 years. Dr. Ness has been at the forefront of women’s health research, being one of the first to propose the research paradigm now termed “gender based biology” in her book entitled, Health and Disease Among Women (Oxford U Press, 1999). In 200 peer-reviewed publications and over 20 federally funded grants, Dr. Ness has explored the epidemiology of hormonal cancers; adverse pregnancy and perinatal outcomes; links between reproductive history and cardiovascular disease; and bacterial sexually transmitted infections.
Victoria Persky, M.D. is a Professor of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focus has been in environmental epidemiology and is now on asthma. She is a member of the Board of Mobile C.A.R.E Foundation, the Advisory Board of the Chicago Asthma Consortium, and the Cook County Lead Prevention Advisory Council, as well as a standing member of the NIH IRAP Epidemiology Study Section and a member of the Editorial Board of the Environmental Justice Journal.
Dr. Powell has research interests in women’s cardiovascular health, psychosocial epidemiology, and lifestyle interventions aimed at influencing important clinical endpoints. She received her graduate training in psychology at Stanford University and her post-graduate training in epidemiology and biostatistics at Mt. Zion Hospital of UCSF. She is a licensed clinical psychologist. She has expertise in psychosocial and cardiovascular epidemiology and is currently leading 3 longitudinal, population-based studies of subclinical cardiovascular changes as women traverse the menopause. She has particular interests and expertise in behavioral randomized clinical trials. Past experience includes being a co-investigator on the Recurrent Coronary Prevention Project, a behavioral trial of 1035 post-MI patients which demonstrated that alteration of Type A behavior was associated with a 44% reduction in cardiac recurrences, and being the Principal Investigator of the Chicago site of the ENRICHD multi-center trial which was aimed at investigating whether improvement in depression or social support in 2481 post-MI patients was associated with reduced cardiac recurrences. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator of HART, a behavioral randomized clinical trial aimed at evaluating the efficacy of self-management training on reduced hospitalizations and death in 900 patients with heart failure. She is also the Principal Investigator of the Chicago site of the Women’s Health Initiative where she participated on the Behavioral Advisory Committee which guides adherence and retention in the trial. She just completed a 4-year commitment as a standing member of the NHLBI Clinical Trials Study Section. She is a founding faculty member of the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Summer Institute for Behavioral Randomized Trials which is in its eighth year. She has been placed above the 95th percentile of the distribution of extramural NIH grants over the last 25 years.
This roundtable will focus on the use of pharmacoepidemiologic methods in comparative effectiveness research. Comparative effectiveness is a major emphasis of the AHRQ Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions about Effectivness Research Network. The Chicago-Area DEcIDE Center is one of 13 such centers funded by AHRQ under the DEcIDE network.
Dr. Stayner is currently a Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Illinois’ School of Public Health in Chicago. Previously he worked at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for nearly 25 years and in his last position was the Chief of their Risk Evaluation Branch. Dr. Stayner is well recognized nationally and internationally in the area of Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology. He has approximately 100 scientific papers and book chapters. His research interests are primarily on occupational and environmental cancer, and epidemiologic methods particularly with regard to quantitative risk assessment. He has been involved in conducting research on cancer and exposure to asbestos, 1,3-butadiene, formaldehyde, diesel exhaust, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, silica and ethylene oxide. He has served as an advisor to numerous agencies including ATSDR, EPA, NRC/IOM, OSHA, MSHA and the WHO. He has also worked as a Visiting Scientist with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon France and has participated in numerous of their monograph meetings. He was the chair of the IARC epidemiologic section for their monograph on formaldehyde, and most recently chaired the IARC meeting on 1,3-butadiene, ethylene oxide and vinyl halides.