Research Programs
The Center for Epidemiology & Population Health has three key research programs. These programs serve as a central hub for research involving innovative new data sources, linking diverse data, pooling and harmonization as well as research on social determinants of health.
Innovative Data Resources
Program Director: Norrina Allen, MPH, PhD, FAHA
Bringing together data from diverse sources has the power to broaden our understanding of health and disease. This program will focus on enabling the linkage of data from across a wide range of sources including public records, medical records, administrative data, consumer records and social/media platforms. In addition, this program will promote epidemiologic and clinical research using the vast and complex electronic health data created by large Electronic Health Record networks.
Multi-Study Pooling Projects to Promote Large-Scale Epidemiologic Research
Program Director: John Wilkins, MD
There has been a rapid growth in longitudinal studies. These studies, coupled with innovations in methodologies for longitudinal data, provide unprecedented opportunities to advance our understanding of health across the life course. We are dedicated to pooling together multiple cohorts thereby promoting research not possible in any one study by providing additional power to examine complex relationships or rare groups of individuals.
Social Environment & Health Program
Program Director: Kiarri Kershaw, PhD
Our program focuses on understanding the contributions of the social environment to adverse health behaviors and outcomes. We use existing data sources to measure and evaluate the health impacts of various aspects of the social environment including chronic stress, social relationships, neighborhood conditions and racial/ethnic residential segregation. We also utilize community-engaged approaches to collect data to examine these associations in the Chicago area. Our goal is to identify modifiable aspects of the social environment and develop interventions to target them in order to reduce health inequities.