Centre for Pharmacoepidemiology
The Centre for Pharmacoepidemiology (CPE) works in a dynamic environment at the intersection of academia, healthcare, authorities and the pharmaceutical industry.
We conduct academic research on drug safety, drug effectiveness and drug utilization and carry out projects on behalf of authorities and the business community in the area of pharmacoepidemiology.
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News
Congratulations Silvia on beginning your doctoral studies!
Silvia Segovia Chacón joined CPE in 2019 as a research assistant and then project manager. This September she starts her next chapter with CPE as a PhD student under the supervision of Carolyn Cesta and other CPE/KEP researchers. Her project will focus on medication utilization and safety in reproductive aged women and during pregnancy, which complements her background as a midwife and interest in women’s health.
Welcome Julia Eriksson to CPE!
Julia is a statistician with a master’s degree in mathematical statistics from Stockholm University. In the last two years, she has worked at the Division of Biostatistics at the Institutet of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Instiutute. She has experience of using different types of regression models, meta analysis and some machine learning models. Julia has been involved in several types of research groups on sleep, domestic violence, primary care studies, stroke, cancer etc. She will join the team of statisticians at CPE to contribute to pharmacoepidemiologic research to improve public health.
CPE researcher elected as co-chair to the Nordic Pharmacoepidemiological Network (NorPEN)
Carolyn Cesta, assistant professor at CPE, has been elected as the co-chair of the Nordic Pharmacoepidemioloigcal Network (NorPEN) https://www.norpen.org/. NorPEN was created in 2008 and is a network academic research groups, public authorities, and national register holders with the purpose of facilitating research within the field of pharmacoepidemiology in the Nordic countries. NorPEN hosts an annual conference and in recent years has focused on providing educational opportunities (e.g., courses, seminars) for trainees in the Nordic countries.
Events Archive
Newly published study in antipsychotic-exposed pregnancies
A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry by the International Pregnancy Safety Study (InPreSS) Consortium, including researchers at CPE and colleagues in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and the US, showed that in a cohort of more than 26,000 antipsychotic-exposed pregnancies, prenatal exposure to antipsychotics was generally not associated with an increase in risk of major congenital malformations. This study was a multi-year undertaking initiated by CPE director Helle Kieler, focusing on how best to apply a uniform study design and analytic approach across many countries to be able to study uncommon exposures (e.g., individual drugs) and rare outcomes (e.g., specific malformations subtypes) in detail.
Together with Scandinavian collaborators, Johan Reutfors, psychiatrist and researcher at the CPE, have found a considerably higher prescription of antidepressants for children and adolescents in Sweden than in Denmark and Norway.
The pattern was similar for sleeping medication. The researchers are now moving on to try to find factors behind the differences. More about this has been reported by the Swedish Radio and the Aftonbladet Daily news podcast.
Welcome to Felix Wittström to CPE!
Felix has joined CPE as a doctoral student in reproductive and psychiatric pharmacoepidemiology, under the main supervision of Carolyn Cesta. His projects will investigate psychotropic drug use during pregnancy and how discontinuation of, or interactions between, medications used in bipolar disorder can affect mother and child. Felix’s background is in medicine and he has started residency training as a doctor in clinical pharmacology.
CPE researcher receives SRP Diabetes Postdoc Fellowship Programme
Laura Pazzagli at CPE is one of the 5 Principal Investigators who has received funding from the Strategic Research Programme (SRP) in Diabetes Postdoc Fellowship Programme. With this postdoctoral program SRP Diabetes aims to support the next generation of exceptional young scientists within the diabetes area. The funded project aims to investigate the impact of socioeconomic factors on antidiabetic medications use and discontinuation and type 2 diabetes consequences such as cardiovascular problems, kidney failure and retinopathy. Read more about the project: https://ki.se/en/srp-diabetes/srp-diabetes-postdoc-fellowships-project-4
Interested candidates for the postdoctoral position ,can find the advertisement https://ki.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID:487660/type:job/where:4/apply:1
EMA call
CPE has together with University of Milano-Bicocca won a EMA call and is on EMA´s short list of eligible research partners for pharmacoepidemiology studies; statistical research.
CPE researcher´s article in a list among 30 must-read papers within pharmacoepidemiology
Laura Pazzagli´s paper “Methods for time-varying exposure related problems in pharmacoepidemiology: An overview” is listed among Pottegård et al.´s list over 30 must-read papers for newcomers to pharmacoepidemiology.
CPE researcher receives a large Forte junior research grant
We are happy to announce that Laura Pazzagli at CPE has received a Forte junior researcher grant of 5 985 000 SEK for the project “Understanding the role of socioeconomic factors on antidiabetic medication use patterns and long-term consequences of type 2 diabetes via novel causal inference methods.”
NorPEN 2021
The 13th Annual Nordic Pharmacoepidemiological Network (NorPEN) meeting was held as an online meeting in November.
Thank you all who participated!
Welcome Diego
Welcome Diego Hernan Giunta to CPE!
Diego is a medical doctor, specialized in internal medicine, and he has for the last 15 years been working as an epidemiologist at Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires/ the Instituto Universitario del Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires.
Diego says "I decided to join CPE to be an active component of a leading pharmacoepidemiologic research team with strong public health and teaching trajectory. I would like to keep on learning and enhancing our team, by been actively engaged in pharmacoepidemiologic research to improve patients effectiveness and safety”
ConcePTION
Together with our Nordic partners, CPE contributes to better drug safety for pregnant women through participation in the ConcePTION project and many other projects.
ADHD and pregnancy
Read the interview with Johan Reutfors, psychiatrist and researcher at CPE/Karolinska Institutet, were he gives an overview over the research performed related to ADHD and pregnancy.
Register-based research course
CPE and Copenhagen University organized the course “Register-based research course: Pharmacoepidemiology - drug use and safety” held at the University of Copenhagen in 2020.
COVID-19 research
CPE participates as one of 18 organizations in the CONSIGN (Covid-19 infectiON and medicineS In pregnancy) project which is initiated by EMA as an infrastructure to support the monitoring of efficacy and safety of COVID-19 treatments and vaccines when used in day-to-day clinical practice.
NorPen Webinar 2020
November 11th 2020, a short webinar was held for the NorPEN community.
Narcolepsy drug did not increase risk of fetal malformation
“This study is based on twice as many pregnancies as earlier studies, and we find no increase in the risk of malformation in infants exposed to modafinil during pregnancy,” says the study’s lead author Carolyn Cesta, researcher at CPE/KI.
Congratulations to CPE’s three masters students
From left to right:
Chaitra Srinivas, Lamya Abdi, Liwei Zhao
Joining forces to improve safety of drugs during pregnancy
CPE is part of the pan-European public private partnership ConcePTION. The overarching aim is to improve safety of drugs during pregnancy and lactation.
Treatment resistant depression increases risk for substance use disorders
Read the recently published paper in Addiction by Philip Brenner et al.
Best reviewer 2018 for Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety
CPE researcher Laura Pazzagli was in August rewarded as Best reviewer 2018 for Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.
CPE postdoc Carolyn Cesta awarded MSCA Individual Fellowship!
Carolyn Cesta has been awarded the prestigious EU Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship to investigate the efficacy and safety of prescribed drugs used for treatment of diabetes during pregnancy.
CPE researcher Laura Pazzagli awarded!
American College of Epidemiology (ACE) has September 25, 2018, awarded postdoctoral researcher Laura Pazzagli for the Best Paper Published by a Junior Investigator in the Annals of Epidemiology.
Top 20 most downloaded recent papers!
CPE researcher Laura Pazzagli’s article Methods for time-varying exposure related problems in pharmacoepidemiology: An overview, Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, was top 20 most downloaded article the last year.
Treatment-resistant depression increases the mortality
Young adults between 18-29 years with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) have more than double the risk of all-cause mortality compared with patients with other types of depression. This shows results published in the Journal of Affective Disorders which has also been reported in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.