Children with Chronic Conditions
COVID-19
Epidemiology & Health Services Pathway
General Pediatrics
Health Services Research
Obesity
Public Health
Scholarly Sessions
Telemedicine/EHR/Medical Informatics
Alyson Goodman, MD, MPH (she/her/hers)
Medical Epidemiologist
CDC
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical need to leverage existing data infrastructure to examine emerging health issues in a timely fashion. Electronic health record (EHR) data repositories are ideally suited for this need because of their statistical power, near real-time availability, and capacity to generate large samples of longitudinal health information at the patient level, which is especially useful for rare risk factors or outcomes. This session will deep-dive into four projects that used EHRs to respond to emerging and high-priority pediatric health services research questions. Dr. Jason Block will discuss his experience working with the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet) on COVID-19 surveillance to inform emergency response efforts. Then, Sam Lange will describe the relationship between obesity and COVID-19, including indirect effects of the pandemic on children’s body mass index (BMI) and obesity as a risk factor for severe COVID-19 illness; she will highlight CDC-authored papers that rapidly disseminated key information on these topics. Next, Dr. Emily Kraus will discuss how she utilized ambulatory EHR data to detect obesity-related conditions, including pre-diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, in order to inform gaps in clinical care guidance. Finally, Dr. Ashutosh Kumar will present updated cost estimates for childhood obesity, which are important for addressing poor reimbursement for obesity-related health services; these estimates also provide useful insights into the medical costs from pandemic-associated weight gain among pediatric patients. All presentations will highlight analytic approaches, key findings, and challenges of using real-world data for pediatric health services research and surveillance.
Speaker: Alyson Goodman, MD, MPH – Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC)
Speaker: Jason Block, MD, MPH – Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute/Harvard Medical School
Speaker: Samantha Lange, MPH – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Speaker: Emily M. Kraus, Phd MPH – CDC
Speaker: Ashutosh Kumar, PhD, MS, MS – CDC