Laura Pazzagli

I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Statistics and computer science (University of Perugia, Italy) and in 2015 I became Ph.D. in Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Perugia, Italy. The title of my thesis was “Inverse probability weighting and doubly robust estimators under model misspecification and a study on the socioeconomic determinants of end-stage renal disease in Sweden”. I started my Ph.D. program in Italy in 2013 and I have spent almost three years as visiting Ph.D. student, Research Assistant and Research Associate at the Department of Statistics of Umeå University, Sweden. During my doctoral education I did research in causal inference methods and started a collaboration with the Swedish Childhood Diabetes Study Group. After my Ph.D. I was involved in a project using the national stroke register “Riks-Stroke register” with the aim of studying disparities and socioeconomic inequalities in emergency care after stroke in Sweden. In June 2016 I started a postdoctoral project about new methodologies for time-varying exposure in pharmacoepidemiology at the Centre for Pharmacoepidemiology, Department of Medicine Solna, Karolinska Institutet. After my postdoctoral training I continued to work at the Centre for Pharmacoepidemiology as statistician contributing to several projects related to drug safety. In October 2022 I joined Björn Pasternak's Team, Division of Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Medicine Solna where I am currently Research Specialist and the principal investigator of a project focusing on the study of socioeconomic factors and antidiabetic medication use patterns in type 2 diabetes patients via causal inference methods. 

Education

- June 2016 - June 2020, postdoctoral researcher in "Methods for time-varying exposure in Pharmacoepidemiology", Centre for Pharmacoepidemiology, Department of Medicine Solna, Karolinska Institutet

- November 2015, doctoral degree in "Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Economic and Social Sciences", University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

- July 2007, master degree in “Statistics and Computer Science”, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

- July 2003, bachelor degree in “Statistics and Computer Science”, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy. 

Honours and awards

- 2024, among articles published in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety between January 2022 and December 2023, my article "Pharmacological and epidemiological considerations while constructing treatment episodes using observational data: A simulation study" was among the top 10 most-cited. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pds.5366

- 2024, among articles published in Biometrical Journal between January 2022 and December 2022, my article "Model misspecification and bias for inverse probability weighting estimators of average causal effects" was among the top downloaded to rank within the top 10% of papers published. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bimj.202100118

- 2023, among articles published in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety between January 2021 and December 2021, my article “The use of uncertain exposure-A method to define switching and add-on in pharmacoepidemiology” was one of the journal’s most downloaded papers. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pds.5363

- 2019, Honor of best reviewer 2018 acknowledged by the scientific journal Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety. https://ki.se/en/meds/best-reviewer-2018-for-pharmacoepidemiology-and-drug-safety

- 2018, Award from the American College of Epidemiology for the best paper published by a junior investigator in the Annals of Epidemiology. The awarded article is ”Marginal structural model to evaluate the joint effect of socioeconomic exposures on the risk of developing end-stage renal disease in patients with type 1 diabetes: a longitudinal study based on data from the Swedish Childhood Diabetes Study Group”. https://acoe.memberclicks.net/annals-of-epidemiology-award

- 2018, among articles published in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety between July 2016 and June 2018, my article “Methods for time-varying exposure related problems in pharmacoepidemiology: An overview” was one of the journal’s top 20 most downloaded papers. https://ki.se/en/meds/top-20-most-downloaded-recent-papers.

My research focuses on pharmacoepidemiology and causal inference methods and I am currently the principal investigator of a project on socioeconomic factors and antidiabetic medication use patterns in type 2 diabetes patients.

My research is and has been funded by

• FORTE, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare
• Strategic Research Programme (SRP) in Diabetes of Karolinska Institutet
• Karolinska Institutet Foundations and Funds

Supervision to doctoral degree

• Felix Wittström, Pharmacoepidemiological studies of medication use in pregnant women with bipolar disorder: polypharmacy, lithium discontinuation and clinical consequences, https://ki.se/en/people/felix-wittstrom, 2022-
• Olivia Aya Nakitanda, Antibiotics in pregnancy: utilization, determinants and safety, 2024