Seminar Detail

Abstract: Pharmacoepidemiology as a scientific discipline aims to generate evidence regarding the use, safety, efficacy, and effectiveness of drugs, vaccines, and medical products in large populations of people. Health administrative data, such as Medicare claims, electronic health records, laboratory results, and other clinical databases facilitate pharmacoepidemiologic investigations into the real-world use of different products and their clinical effects. This seminar lecture will describe various health administrative databases in the US that can be linked together and used to conduct large-scale pharmacoepidemiologic studies. Causal inference research on the herpes zoster vaccine and its clinical effects in older nursing home residents will be used as a case study.

Short bio: Daniel Harris, PhD, MPH is a geriatric pharmacoepidemiologist and health services researcher. Dr Harris’ research aims to optimize medication and vaccine use for older adults living in the community and in long-term care. He applies a range of descriptive, causal, and predictive methodological approaches to understand how medications and vaccines are distributed throughout populations and to document their real-world safety and effectiveness. Dr Harris’ work also explores the effects of health policies on medication and vaccine use. His research has been funded by the Alzheimer Society of Canada, Canadian Institutes for Health Research, National Institute on Aging, and pharmaceutical industry partners.