Pharmacoepidemiology

What is Pharmacoepidemiology?

Pharmacoepidemiology examines the use and effects of medicines in large populations. In the field of cancer, pharmacoepidemiology examines the effects of medications on cancer risk, disease prevention, and response to treatments, as well as any adverse and/or long-term effects of chemotherapeutic and other pharmacologic agents used to treat cancer.

The population over 65 years in Ireland is increasing and is expected to increase to 15% by 2021 from a current level of 11%. This increase has consequences for health services with increases in disease prevalence and use of pharmaceuticals generally. It is predicted that the use of pharmaceuticals will increase by 39% from 2007-2020 if only demographic changes are considered (www.esri.ie).

Research Areas

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Collaborations

National

• NCRI - data linkage studies. Cancer pharmacoepidemiology; interventions for medication adherence in cancer. Dr Sharp is a cancer epidemiologist at the national cancer registry and is PI and co-PI on a number of related research grants as well as co-supervising PhD students.
• HRB HSR PhD scholars programme - joint initiative between UCC, RCSI and TCD
• RCSI - HRB Primary care centre (Prof Tom Fahey)
• TILDA - The Irish Longitudinal Study of Aging

International

• John Hopkins University - Baltimore, USA Prof Visvanathan
• ENCEPP - European centres for pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacovigilence (EMEA)
• McGill University, Canada. Prof Samy Suissa and Dr Laurent Azoulay.
• Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland.
• University of Porto Medical School, Portugal

Research Resources

• HSE-PCRS prescribing pharmacy claims database (www.hse.ie)
• National cancer registry Ireland (NCRI) (www.ncri.ie)
• Linked HSE-PCRS and NCRI databases
• International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (www.pharmacoepi.org)
• TILDA (www.tilda.ie; data available through ISSDA archives)