Jennifer Clark Nelson, PhD
“As national statistical leaders, we promote the use of rigorous methods that enhance drug and vaccine safety monitoring in the United States.”
Jennifer Clark Nelson, PhD
Director, Biostatistics; Senior Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Affiliate Professor of Biostatistics, University of Washington
Jen.Nelson@kp.org
206-287-2004
Biography
Jennifer Clark Nelson, PhD, is a senior investigator and biostatistician with expertise in methods to assess drug and vaccine safety and effectiveness for studies that use electronic health care data.
Dr. Nelson provides national statistical leadership and strategic direction for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Sentinel Initiative, an active surveillance system for monitoring the safety of all FDA-regulated medical products after they have reached the market. She also leads safety research within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-sponsored Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), a national collaboration involving 13 health care organizations that has monitored immunization safety in the United States since 1990. Her CDC service further includes membership on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Technical Work Group to help inform recommendations on the use of these vaccines in the U.S.
As part of both the VSD and Sentinel projects, Dr. Nelson works with her Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) colleagues Andrea Cook, PhD, and David Carrell, PhD, to pilot and scale up innovative sequential monitoring, machine learning, and natural language processing approaches that rapidly and accurately identify adverse events not detected in pre-licensure studies. Her 2013 study of the safety of a pentavalent combination DTaP-IPV-Hib (Pentacel) childhood vaccine put some of these ideas into practice and was selected as one of the American Journal of Epidemiology’s 10 best articles of the year. She and her clinical KPWHRI research partner, Lisa Jackson, MD, MPH, lead the CDC’s surveillance effort to proactively monitor the safety of the new herpes zoster vaccine for adults (Shingrix).
Dr. Nelson is an affiliate professor in biostatistics at the University of Washington (UW) and has been KPWHRI’s director of biostatistics since 2014. In collaboration with the UW, she and Dr. Cook co-founded the Seattle Symposium on Health Care Data Analytics, a conference designed to confront challenges and promote learning from electronic health record data. In 2009, Dr. Nelson earned the VSD’s Margarette Kolczak Award for outstanding contributions in biostatistics and epidemiology in vaccine safety. She is also a fellow of the American Statistical Association.
Research interests and experience
-
Biostatistics
Post-marketing drug and vaccine safety study design and analysis; secondary use and misuse of large electronic health care databases for medical research; vaccine effectiveness study methods; sequential testing in observational data settings; methods to assess interrater variability
-
Vaccines & Infectious Diseases
Biostatistics; post-marketing vaccine safety study design and analysis; influenza vaccine effectiveness in the elderly; methodological issues in large multi-site health care database studies
-
Medication Use & Patient Safety
Biostatistics; post-marketing drug and vaccine safety study design and analysis; safety signal detection methods; methodological issues in large, multi-site health care database studies
-
Aging & Dementia
Biostatistics; statistical issues in longitudinal observational cohort studies
-
Cardiovascular Health
Recent publications
Jackson LA, Starkovich P, Dunstan M, Yu O, Nelson J, Dunn J, Rees T, Zavitkovsky A, Maus D, Froeschle JE, Decker M. Prospective assessment of the effect of needle length and injection site on the risk of local reactions to the fifth diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis vaccination. Pediatrics. 2008;121(3):e646-52. PubMed
Nelson JC, Jackson ML, Jackson LA. Effectiveness of influenza vaccination. N Engl J Med. 2007;357(26):2728-9; author reply 2730-1. PubMed
Jackson ML, Weiss NS, Nelson JC, Jackson LA. To rule out confounding, observational studies of influenza vaccine need to include analyses during the "preinfluenza period". Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(14):1553-4. PubMed
Lydon-Rochelle MT, Cardenas V, Nelson JC, Holt VL, Gardella C, Easterling TR. Induction of labor in the absence of standard medical indications: incidence and correlates. Med Care. 2007;45(6):505-12. PubMed
Jackson LA, Neuzil KM, Nahm MH, Whitney CG, Yu O, Nelson JC, Starkovich PT, Dunstan M, Carste B, Shay DK, Baggs J, Carlone GM. Immunogenicity of varying dosages of 7-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccine in seniors previously vaccinated with 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine. Vaccine. 2007;25(20):4029-37. Epub 2007 Mar 12. PubMed
Jackson ML, Nelson JC, Chen RT, Davis RL, Jackson LA. Vaccines and changes in coagulation parameters in adults on chronic warfarin therapy: a cohort study. Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf. 2007;16(7):790-6. PubMed
Dublin S, Weiss NS, Nelson JC, Jackson ML A response to Majumdar SR et al, Statins and outcomes in patients admitted to hospital with community acquired pneumonia: population based prospective cohort study." BMJ 2006;333:999. PubMed
Neuzil KM, Jackson LA, Nelson J, Klimov A, Cox N, Bridges CB, Dunn J, Destefano F, Shay D. Immunogenicity and reactogenicity of 1 versus 2 doses of trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine in vaccine-naive 5-8-year-old children. J Infect Dis. 2006;194(8):1032-9. Epub 2006 Sep 11. PubMed
Nelson JC, Jiang XC, Tabas I, Tall A, Shea S. Plasma sphingomyelin and subclinical atherosclerosis: findings from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Am J Epidemiol. 2006;163(10):903-12. PubMed
Jackson LA, Dunstan M, Starkovich P, Dunn J, Yu O, Nelson JC, Rees T, Zavitkovsky A. Prophylaxis with acetaminophen or ibuprofen for prevention of local reactions to the fifth diphtheria-tetanus toxoids-acellular pertussis vaccination: a randomized, controlled trial. Pediatrics. 2006;117(3):620-5. PubMed
Healthy findings blog
For Women's History Month: Q&A with scientific leaders
KPWHRI’s executive director and scientific division leaders share their career paths, advice.Research
New study confirms safety of shingles vaccine
KPWHRI researchers analyzed data from more than 640,000 vaccine doses to understand risk of severe reactions.
Vaccine research
COVID-19 vaccines safe for people who are pregnant
New study supports a growing body of data that shows the vaccines are safe during pregnancy.
News
Richards and Nelson earn research awards
Honors from the Health Care Systems Research Network for early career achievements and manuscript of the year
Vaccine safety
COVID-19 vaccines and serious reactions: 3 questions answered
Jen Nelson, PhD, talks about monitoring reactions to the mRNA vaccines.
Land Acknowledgment
Our Seattle offices sit on the occupied land of the Duwamish and by the shared waters of the Coast Salish people, who have been here thousands of years and remain. Learn about practicing land acknowledgment.