Message from Dean Strauss:
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Kate Lapane, PhD as Chair of Epidemiology and Community Health in the emerging School of Public Health effective July 1, 2008. Doctor Lapane is an epidemiologist whose contributions to the field of pharmacoepidemiology have been substantial. She has been continuously funded from the NCI, NIA, AHRQ, and foundations, as well as from industry sources. The overarching theme of her applied research is to improve the health outcomes of elderly persons through the understanding of risks and benefits of medications in patients systematically excluded from clinical trials. Her translational research focuses on interventions to evaluate the use of health information technology to improve patient-centered pharmacy care in nursing home settings, as well as ambulatory settings. Her methodologic research focuses on understanding the extent to which statistical approaches minimize bias in epidemiologic research. In particular, Dr. Lapane thoughtfully critiques methods (e.g. propensity score techniques) to evaluate causal effects of medications in non-experimental study designs when the underlying data structures are inherently clustered in nature ("multilevel confounding"). She is also committed to advancing fundamental knowledge of issues central to the improvement of population health by focusing on understanding the complex interactions between biological, psycho/social, and economical forces which impact disease production. Dr. Lapane comes to VCU from the Department of Community Health of Brown University. She was recently unanimously recommended for promotion to the rank of Professor by her colleagues in the Department after having received tenure in 2003. She was the Director of the Graduate Program in Epidemiology, stepping down to lead the development of the newly formed Graduate Program in Health Services Research. She was the chief instructor of the core epidemiologic methods courses. She has mentored over thirty junior faculty members, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students. Her efforts as an educational innovator and mentor were recently recognized as she received the 2006 Harriet Sheridan Medal for Distinguished Teaching and Learning at Brown University.

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