Kristin Ray
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Young children get a lot of antibiotics for coughs, sore throats, and ear pain, and a large share of those prescriptions do not help. Respiratory infection visits account for more than two-thirds of outpatient visits where young children receive antibiotics, and these visits mix conditions where antibiotics may be appropriate, such as middle ear infection, bacterial sinus infection, and strep throat, with viral colds where antibiotics do nothing.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
antibiotic stewardship
acute respiratory tract infection
acute otitis media
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2031
What they work on
- Test in a randomized trial whether tele-otoscope-enabled primary care telemedicine for pediatric acute respiratory tract infections reduces antibiotic receipt among children under two years old, including those with at least one prior episode of acute otitis media.
- Measure the effect of at-home tele-otoscope-supported primary care telemedicine visits on health care costs during early childhood, using cost-effectiveness analysis methods.
- Assess whether offering convenient at-home primary care telemedicine shifts families away from urgent care, emergency department, and non-pediatric telemedicine for respiratory infection symptoms, applying behavioral change models of acute care-seeking.
More about the research
An estimated one-third to one-half of antibiotics prescribed for these infections in young children are unnecessary, contributing to antibiotic resistance, side effects, and avoidable spending. The problem is partly about where families go: care at child-focused sites is linked to fewer antibiotics, but the team's prior work found that families often prioritize getting seen immediately, which pushes them toward non-pediatric telemedicine services, emergency departments, and urgent care.
Why it matters
Unnecessary antibiotics in early childhood drive antibiotic resistance, cause side effects, and add cost, and reducing them is a national priority. By testing whether at-home eardrum cameras paired with a child's own pediatric practice cut antibiotic use and spending, the trial could give clinics, health systems, and insurers concrete evidence on whether to support this form of telemedicine, and could spare young children avoidable antibiotic exposure.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Stephen Boppart
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether adding optical coherence tomography, a light-based imaging method that sees behind the eardrum, to standard pneumatic otoscopy improves diagnostic accuracy and reduces antibiotic prescriptions in children presenting to primary care with ear pain or suspected otitis media.
Jaime Peterson
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether Kinder Coaching, a parent coaching program delivered by community health workers, improves preschoolers' school readiness on the Brigance III screen compared with a provider-reviewed checklist, in a randomized trial of 240 Medicaid families in Oregon.
Julio Duarte
University of Florida, FL·Pharmacology
Expand pharmacogenetic prescribing decision support for emergency and post-emergency care to include drug–drug–gene interactions, more gene–drug pairs, pharmacist medication reviews and recommendations for prescribers outside the health system.
The school
University of Pittsburgh: 83 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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