Pamela Lutsey
University of Minnesota, MN·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Large health datasets can show who gets heart disease and dementia, what care they receive and which early-life conditions raise their risk. This research uses such data to study cardiovascular disease (CVD) and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD).
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
cardiovascular disease
heart failure
myocardial infarction
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through Jun 2031
What they work on
- Measure rural versus urban differences in new cardiovascular disease and its management, using MarketScan and Medicare 20% insurance claims classified by rural-urban commuting area codes.
- Identify patient and health-system factors, such as specialist access, telehealth and travel time to hospitals, linked to rural heart patients receiving guideline-based care, and test effects of national policies using a natural experiment design.
- Test whether childhood family and neighborhood socioeconomic status predicts late-life dementia and brain changes, by linking ARIC-NCS participants to 1930–1950 U.S. Census records and PET, MRI and blood biomarkers.
- Estimate whether childhood lead exposure from plumbing, leaded gasoline, and mines and smelters raises dementia risk, and whether childhood socioeconomic status changes this effect.
- Compare how well medications prevent heart disease and its recurrence, applying pharmacoepidemiology methods to MarketScan, Medicare and electronic health records, plus ARIC and MESA cohort data.
More about the research
Three projects connect: one compares rural and urban heart care, one links childhood poverty and lead exposure to late-life dementia, and one tests how well heart medications work in real-world patients while training early-career researchers.
Why it matters
Rural Americans face higher heart disease death rates. This work could identify patient-level and health system fixes, such as better specialist access, that improve their care. Showing how childhood poverty and lead exposure shape dementia risk may inform policies that reduce dementia disparities. Real-world evidence on heart medications could reinforce or prompt reconsideration of clinical guidelines.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Mentoring and Research in Patient-Oriented Cardiovascular Pharmacoepidemiology
NIH · Jul 2021 – Jun 2031
The Legacy of Childhood SES and Lead Exposure on Dementia Risk: ARIC-NCS Historical Census Linkage
NIH · Feb 2026 – Dec 2030
Cardiovascular Disease Incidence, Management and Outcomes Among Rural Americans: Insights from Two Real-World Datasets
NIH · Aug 2026 – Apr 2030
Closest labs
Arnab Ghosh
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Test whether extreme heat events raise county-level COVID-19 risk nationwide, combining Johns Hopkins case data, census data and National Weather Service records from 2020–2022 in spatiotemporal models with quasi-experimental designs.
Laura B Zahodne
University of Michigan, MI·Psychology
Follow MCAP participants for a third assessment and expand the cohort, then use latent growth curve modeling to test whether neighborhood socioeconomic status predicts differences in cognitive decline between Black and White older adults.
Vikram Fielding-Singh
Stanford University, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Evaluate how modifiable preoperative hemodialysis parameters relate to postoperative complications such as myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, arrhythmia and infection, using linked Medicare claims and dialysis-provider electronic health records.
The school
University of Minnesota: 88 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 722 research doctorates a year.
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