The 40th International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology Meeting in Berlin, Germany just wrapped! During the conference from August 24th to 28th, our group had several exciting presentations showcasing ongoing work in the Lund Research Group.

Olivia Chen, MSPH, presented her work on “Predicting survival using geriatric assessment (GA) in older adults with advanced cancer using least absolute selection and shrinkage operator (LASSO).” Joyce Pak, MPH, presented a spotlight poster during the Environmental Pharmacoepidemiology Session for her research: “Evaluating the intersection of climate vulnerability and cancer burden in North Carolina.” Jeanny Wang, MPH, also presented in the same spotlight session for “Climate vulnerability and utilization of electricity-dependent durable medical equipment among Medicare beneficiaries in North Carolina.”

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Bria Carmichael, MPH, and Jeanny Wang were also presenters at a workshop/symposium, titled: “Using generative AI to more efficiently conduct systematic reviews, solve coding problems, and communicate research findings: a student-led workshop”!

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In addition, alumni of the Lund Research Group were a strong presence at ISPE! Dr. Duchesneau moderated a session titled “On Optimizing Outcomes for Older Adults”, and presented her work, “Claims-Based Frailty Trajectories During Adjuvant Chemotherapy Predict Long-Term Mortality in Older Women with Stage I-III Breast Cancer”.

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Dr. Webster-Clark presented three separate talks: “Prevalent New User Designs: State of the Science and Considerations for Complex Clinical Scenarios”, “Post-Surgical Opioid Initiation and Diverticulitis Risk: a Multi-jurisdictional Population-Based Cohort Study”, and “Using External Validity Methods to Improve the Precision of Effect Estimates in Subgroups”. Dr. Gaber shared his research through presentations for “Patterns of Symptomatic Therapies Utilized in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias”, and “Comparative effectiveness and cardiovascular safety of enzalutamide versus abiraterone amongst older U.S. men diagnosed with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer”!

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At the ISPE UNC Alumni reception, current UNC students connected with UNC alumni as well as some of past Harry Guess Memorial Lecture speakers. With a successful conference, rich research shared, and new knowledge gained, our research group looks forward to seeing you all next year, where the 41st International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology Meeting will be held in Washington, D.C.!

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What an exhilarating academic year it has been for our Research Group! Celebrate with us as we dive into the highlights:

We are so proud of a veteran member of our Research Group, Alison Musty, who graduated this Spring with distinction and Highest Honors, earning both her BA in sociology and BS in Biology. Allison is now working as a Research Assistant at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Congrats, Allison!

This fall, we are also welcoming two new members to our Research Group: Gauri Bhatkhande and Elyse Miller. Welcome!

A few other accomplishments this year include:

• ~18 papers published by students within the research group
• Our team has received an administrative supplement from the NCI (congrats to Bria Carmichael!) and new funding from the FDA Triangle CERSI (Co-PIs: Jonsson Funk/Lund)
• Members of our group are newly appointed to the T32 in Environmental Epidemiology – congrats, Elyse Miller and Jeanny Wang!
• >5 abstracts and one Workshop/Symposium accepted for presentation at the 2024 International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology Annual Meeting
• Three members of our team successfully defended their dissertation proposals and are working hard (congrats Joyce Pak, Claire Su, and Courtney Schlusser!), and another pair conquered the Doctoral Methods Qualifying Exams (congrats Jeanny Wang and Olivia Chen!)

Stay tuned for more updates as we kick-off the 2024-2025 academic year!

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The Lund Research Group is proud to have joined the Tomma’s Tar Heelers team in fundraising and participating in the Lung Cancer Initiative 18th annual Triangle LUNGe Forward 5K Run, Walk and Celebration. LUNGe Forward events provide a day of hope, celebration of survivors, remembrance of those lost, and all proceeds support lung cancer survivors, education programs, access to care, and advancing lung cancer research. 

Speaking of research advancements, our group recently published an important report on lung cancer screening uptake in JAMA Network Open, titled “Prevalence of Lung Cancer Screening in the US, 2022.” This study, led by Dr. Louise Henderson and Dr. Jennifer Lund, with co-authors Claire Su, MS, Joyce Pak, MPH, and Olivia Chen, MSPH, further establishes evidence toward increasing lung cancer screening uptake nationwide. Read more about the findings here.

Our research group continues to celebrate progress and move forward lung cancer research. Stay tuned for future updates!

Tomma’s Tar Heelers is named in honor of Tomma Hargraves, a lung cancer advocate who was passionate about access to cancer treatment and started the gas card drive with the Lung Cancer Initiative, for which the Lund Research Group also raised funds for last year.

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In observance of March 14th (3/14), Pi (π) Day, members of the Lund Research Group competed in a pie-bake-off at the 2^nd Annual Pharmacoepidemiology Program Causal Pi(e) Day Celebration! The gathering, organized by the Pharmacoepidemiology Program’s very own Dr. Mollie Wood, showcased the talents of many highly accomplished epidemiologists.

Several delicious pies were tasted, judged, and voted on. The winner, who sits upon the ‘Sugar-Butter-Flour’ Throne was the talented Katie Wiener, MS!

Did you know that more than 8,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer each year in North Carolina? Five-year survival for lung cancer has been improving, and is now 21%, thanks to research, screening and earlier diagnosis, and better treatment options. However, once diagnosed with lung cancer – patients face a large financial burden as the result of costs associated with their work-up, diagnosis, and treatment. Studies have shown that ‘financial toxicity’ associated with lung cancer treatment is substantial – and often forces patients to make difficult decisions about how they spend their money, on their cancer treatment or their other basic needs.

 

Transportation to and from treatment facilities represent one category of costs that adds-up for patients over the course of lung cancer treatment. As a result, in December 2023, the UNC Epidemiology – Lund Research Group hosted a gas card drive, in partnership with the Lung Cancer Initiative (LCI) to help support patients during their lung cancer treatment. The LCI (https://lungcancerinitiative.org/) is a leading nonprofit in North Carolina that provides support to the lung cancer community by connecting patients, survivors, and loved ones with the medical and research community.

 

In total, our group raised $250 in gas cards for the LCI!

 

 

The American Cancer Society has awarded a five-year, $1.2 million Team Science grant to a group of UNC-Chapel Hill researchers who will develop new methods to measure and map cancer screening across North Carolina.

TOP ROW, FROM LEFT: DRS. KATHERINE REEDER-HAYES, JENNY LUND AND CHRISTOPHER BAGGETT; BOTTOM ROW, FROM LEFT: DRS. LOUISE HENDERSON, STEPHANIE WHEELER AND DAN REULAND

Katherine Reeder-Hayes, MD, is the study’s lead principal investigator, and Jenny Lund, PhD, and Christopher Baggett, PhD, are the team principal investigators. These three faculty members co-direct the UNC Lineberger Cancer Information & Population Health Resource (CIPHR).

Other research team members include Louise Henderson, PhD, Stephanie Wheeler, PhD, Dan Reuland, MD, and Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD — all faculty with ties to the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, UNC’s School of Medicine, and/or the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center — as well as Brian Reich, PhD, from N.C. State University, and CIPHR staff.

The grant will fund research designed to facilitate more widespread cancer screening and early detection, culminating in reduced cancer mortality. Specifically, the researchers will use data from CIPHR to create new tools based on insurance claims that more efficiently measure and compare cancer screening use across small geographic areas and groups of people.

UNC Epidemiology PhD student, Joyce Pak, and Research Group PI, Dr. Jenny Lund, were recently awarded a Lineberger Tier 1 ($50,000) Grant to evaluate the impacts of hurricane-related flooding on delays in initial cancer-directed care and mortality in North Carolina. This exciting work will leverage information from several publicly available data sources on hurricane hazards and area-level contextual data, as well as the North Carolina Central Cancer Registry. This work will serve as the foundation for Ms. Pak’s dissertation project. Other collaborators include Dr. Chris Baggett, Dr. Katie Reeder-Hayes, and Dr. Shabbar Ranapurwala. Congrats to the team!   

Victoria Petermann, PhD, BS, RN, successfully defended her doctoral dissertation titled,Evaluating the Role of Contextual Factors in Access to Care for Endometrial Cancer, on Thursday, August 3rd, 2023. The Lund research group is so proud of Victoria’s accomplishments and wish her all the success in her next steps as a nurse-researcher and post-doctoral fellow at the University of Virginia School of Nursing!

On June 30th, 2023, the National Cancer Institute awarded Dr. Lund and Dr. Louise Henderson a 5-year R01 grant for nearly $1.8 million for the project, “Applying causal inference methods to improve estimation of the real-world benefits and harms of lung cancer screening.” Learn more about the project on NIH RePORTER.

The project will apply novel causal inference methodologies to evaluate the benefits and harms of lung cancer screening in clinical practice settings. Using data from the randomized National Lung Screening Trial, as well as real-world datasets including the National Health and Interview Survey, the Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance Survey, a 20% nationwide sample of Medicare claims, and the North Carolina Lung Screening Registry, the study will generate real-world evidence to improve the delivery of lung cancer screening at the population level.

Other faculty and collaborators on the grant include Michael Hudgens, PhD, and Til Stürmer, MD, PhD, from the Gillings School, as well as Dan Reuland, MD, MPH, from the School of Medicine.

On June 7, 2023, the Office of Research, Innovation and Global Solutions at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health officially announced awardees of the Place and Health: A North Carolina Public Health Approach Grant to explore the role of place (geography) in health outcomes across North Carolina through building infrastructure to investigate community concerns about the disparate impacts of extreme weather-related disasters on health care access in NC. Congratulations to Principal Investigator Dr. Lund and co-investigators Chris Baggett PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology; John Wallace, PhD, senior data adviser with the North Carolina Institute for Public Health; Arrianna Planey, PhD, assistant professor of health policy and management; Eboneé Butler, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology; and Paul Delamater, PhD, assistant professor with the UNC Department of Geography, and dedicated gratitude to the community partner, Hetal Patel, partnership manager with the MDC Rural Forward program as well as cofunding support from the Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility.

Learn more about the awardees and groundbreaking projects funded on the official School of Global Public Health press release !