College of Public Health-Carver College of Medicine New Investigator Research Award
The College of Public Health-Carver College of Medicine New Investigator Research Award is a pilot award program open to newly-appointed faculty in the College of Public Health (CPH) or the Roy A. and Lucille J. Carver College of Medicine (CCOM). This award is intended to assist newly-appointed faculty in advancing their College of Public Health-Carver College of Medicine research careers.
2008-2009 Award Recipients
Ryan Carnahan, Pharm.D., Clinical Assistant Professor of Epidemiology
“Anticholinergic Use Among Veterans Affairs Nursing Home
Residents with Dementia: Prevalence, Correlates, and
Relationship to Antipsychotic Prescribing”
Anticholinergic medications can worsen cognition and increase psychotic and aggressive symptoms in Alzheimer’s disease patients, yet they are commonly prescribed. Psychosis and aggression in dementia are often treated with antipsychotics, but the use of these drugs in dementia increases risks of mortality and other adverse effects. One way to reduce antipsychotic use is to eliminate avoidable causes of aggression and psychosis such as anticholinergics. Carnahan’s research will describe anticholinergic use and examine it as a risk factor for antipsychotic prescribing in elders with dementia in hopes that medication safety and outcomes for these patients can be improved.
Dawei Liu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
of Biostatistics
“A Joint Modeling of Correlated Recurrent and Terminal
Events with Multivariate Frailty in the Analysis of
Driving Safety Data in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease”
Due to the complexity of Parkinson’s disease, it is not clear what and how risk factors affect driving safety. Liu’s project will build on recently completed research to develop a joint modeling framework that simultaneously models potentially correlated driving outcomes among Parkinson’s patients. Under this framework, the analysis will try to explore relationships between crash, citation, and driving cessation and identify risk factors associated with these outcomes.