Suzanne West Elected to International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology Board

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Suzanne L. West, Ph.D., an RTI International fellow and internationally recognized pharmacoepidemiologist, has been elected to the board of directors for the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology.

A non-profit professional organization, the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology is dedicated to promoting the open exchange of scientific information and to developing policy, education and advocacy for the field of pharmacoepidemiology. West will begin a three-year term on the board of directors in August 2012; she served a previous term on the board from 2001 to 2004.

West has more than 30 years of research experience and is best known for her work assessing the validity of data used in pharmacoepidemiologic research, including health insurer and electronic health records data and data originating via self-report from questionnaires. West has led studies in a variety of research areas including diabetes, mental health, substance abuse, cancer, autoimmune diseases, urinary tract infections, asthma, female sexual dysfunction and prenatal conditions. She has also been involved in developing quality-of-care measures for value-based purchasing, an area that is gaining increasing national interest.

Most recently, she has focused on methodologic, privacy, and policy issues related to the linkage of electronic data, specifically electronic health records and health insurer claims.

She has served as project director and task leader for large-scale projects funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and many commercial clients.

West has authored or co-authored more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and technical reports as well as several book chapters. She is a member of the RTI Institutional Review Board and is as a manuscript reviewer for numerous academic publications.

West is currently an adjunct associate professor in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Epidemiology and is the former associate and interim director of the University of North Carolina Center of Excellence in Pharmacoepidemiology and Public Health.

West has a doctoral degree in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master's degree in public health from the University of Minnesota, and a bachelor's degree in microbiology from Cornell University.