Our Expertise

How low-income older adults and people with disabilities manage their health care and navigate complicated policy and insurance plans can be challenging. Federal Medicare programs cover medical needs for millions of older Americans while state Medicaid programs cover long-term services and supports for these populations.

The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Sentinel Initiative is designed to use real-world evidence to evaluate the safety and performance of medical products, including drugs, vaccines, biologics and medical devices. Operating under a distributed data model, Sentinel coordinates large-scale pharmacoepidemiologic surveillance studies across multiple data partners (e.g., insurance companies, health systems and academic medical centers), allowing all data to remain in the hands of the data owner.

The department’s health policy efforts extend beyond U.S. borders to improve the health of communities around the globe. Our faculty are conducting epidemiological research in Sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South America, working to inform the health care system in the Middle East, and recently have established new agreements to study aspects of public health in South America. 

As a part of the broader research into pharmacotherapy safety and effectiveness during pregnancy, research from Professor Carlos Grijalva, MD, Research Associate Professor Margaret Adgent, PhD, Assistant Professor Ashley Leech, PhD, and Assistant Professor Andrew Wiese PhD, MPH, have explored risk factors for developing opioid use disorders and opioid-related overdoses and death among women prescribed opioids after childbirth.

 The department has expanded its focus on the economics of health care and health policy by establishing the Center for Health Economic Modeling in 2021, directed by Professor John Graves, PhD.

The department's perinatal pharmacoepidemiology team, which includes Professors Carlos Grijalva, MD and Marie Griffin, MD, Research Associate Professor Margaret Adgent, PhD, Assistant Professor Ashley Leech, PhD, and Assistant Professor Andrew Wiese Ph.D., MPH, have worked closely with colleagues in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology to use linked records of mothers and babies enrolled in TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid program, to examine important questions regarding maternal and infant outcomes associated with medication use during pregnancy.

The department studies population-level use and costs of medications in the United States, particularly around specialty drug pricing, implications for patients and Medicare policy.

The department has expanded its research into mental health with the additions of University Distinguished Professor Velma McBride Murry, PhD and Assistant Professor Carrie Fry, PhD, to the roster of primary faculty since 2020. 

The Tennessee Emerging Infection Program (EIP) is part of a 10-state network sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and consists of state health departments and their collaborators in academic institutions. The EIP network is a national resource for surveillance, prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases. This surveillance produces reliable estimates of the incidence of certain infections and provides the foundation for a variety of epidemiologic studies to explore risk factors, disease severity and prevention strategies.

The department often focuses its research on the nuances of Medicaid programs and subsequent policies regarding affordability, delivery of care and overall health outcomes. Assistant Professors Carrie Fry, PhD, and Kevin Griffith, PhD, have used insurance claims and hospital discharge data to measure access to opioid use disorder, mental health and, more recently, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on excess mortality and other areas. Dr. Fry has also been recognized for leveraging her research into developing potential new statistical models.

The department’s health policy efforts extend beyond U.S. borders to improve the health of communities around the globe.Our faculty are conducting epidemiological research in Sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South America, working to inform the health care system in the Middle East, and recently have established new agreements to study aspects of public health in South America.