Susan Shortreed, PhD

“By using rich data sources such as electronic health records, we can begin to identify which treatments will work best for which people.”

Susan M. Shortreed, PhD

Senior Biostatistics Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Affiliate Professor, Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington

Susan.M.Shortreed@kp.org
206-287-2088

Curriculum vitae (CV)

Biography

Susan Shortreed, PhD, uses statistics and machine learning methods to address health science problems, with a special emphasis on analyzing complex longitudinal data. She develops and evaluates statistical approaches for observational data, and works to improve the design and analyses of studies that use data collected from electronic health care records. She is leading a project to develop statistical methods for constructing personalized treatment strategies using data captured from electronic health records.

Dr. Shortreed earned her PhD in statistics from the University of Washington. Then she spent two years in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and two years in the School of Computer Science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Shortreed has collaborated with scientists in a broad range of areas including alcohol use, cancer screening, and medication safety. She now works alongside researchers in mental and behavioral health, evaluating and comparing treatments for chronic pain and depression, and interventions to prevent suicide. Dr. Shortreed is an investigator with the Mental Health Research Network, designing studies to address important public health concerns, such as determining which antidepressant medications work best for which patients and developing risk prediction algorithms to identify individuals who may be at increased risk for suicidal behavior.

Dr. Shortreed is also an affiliate professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington School of Public Health. She served on the executive board for the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics in Epidemiology and the editorial board of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C: Applied Statistics.

Research interests and experience

Biostatistics

Design and analysis of studies that use data collected from electronic health records; analysis of complex longitudinal data; methods for constructing personalized treatment strategies, computational statistics and algorithms; machine learning; variable selection methods.

Medication Use & Patient Safety

Biostatistics; machine learning; using data collected from electronic health records to study rare adverse events; opioid safety; medication safety in pregnancy.
Mental Health

Biostatistics; treatment for chronic depression; suicide prevention; developing personalized treatment strategies; developing risk prediction models.

Recent publications

Turner JA, Shortreed SM, Saunders KW, LeResche L, Thielke S, Von Korff M. Does association of opioid use with pain and function differ by fibromyalgia or widespread pain status? Pain. 2016 Oct;157(10):2208-16. doi: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000000631. PubMed

Shortreed SM, Johnson EJ, Rutter CM, Kamineni A, Wernli KJ, Chubak J. Cohort restriction based on prior enrollment: Examining potential biases in estimating cancer and mortality risk. Obs Stud. 2016 Aug;2:51-64. Epub 2016 Sep 26. PubMed

Thielke S, Shortreed SM, Saunders K, Turner JA, LeResche L, Von Korff M. Predictors of continuing opioid use at one year among chronic pain patients. Clin J Pain. 2016 Jul 15. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Thielke S, Shortreed SM, Saunders K, Turner JA, LeResche L, von Korff M. A prospective study of predictors of long-term opioid use among patients with chronic non-cancer pain. Clin J Pain. 2016 Jul 15. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Rossom RC, Shortreed S, Coleman KJ, Beck A, Waitzfelder BE, Stewart C, Ahmedani BK, Zeber JE, Simon GE. Antidepressant adherence across diverse populations and healthcare settings. Depress Anxiety. 2016 Jun 20. doi: 10.1002/da.22532. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Turner JA, Shortreed SM, Saunders KW, LeResche L, Von Korff M. Association of levels of opioid use with pain and activity interference among patients initiating chronic opioid therapy: a longitudinal study. Pain. 2016 Apr;157(4):849-57. doi: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000000452. PubMed

Simon GE, Coleman KC, Rossom R, Beck A, Oliver M, Johnson E, Whiteside U, Operskalski B, Penfold RB, Shortreed SM, Rutter C. Risk of suicide attempt and suicide death following completion of the patient health questionnaire depression module in community practice. J Clin Psychiatry. 2016 Feb;77(2):221-7. doi: 10.4088/JCP.15m09776. PubMed

Shortreed SM, Von Korff M, Thielke S, LeResche L, Saunders K, Rosenberg D, Turner JA. Electronic health records to evaluate and account for non-response bias: a survey of patients using chronic opioid therapy. Obs Stud. 2016;2:24-38. Epub 2016 Feb 1. PubMed

Shortreed SM, Von Korff M, Thielke S, LeResche LA, Saunders KW, Rosenberg D, Turner JA. Assessing nonresponse bias with electronic health records: a survey of chronic opioid therapy patients. Obs Stud, 2:24-38. PubMed

Ertefaie A, Shortreed S, Chakraborty B. Q-learning residual analysis: application to the effectiveness of sequences of antipsychotic medications for patients with schizophrenia. Stat Med. 2016 Jan 10. doi: 10.1002/sim.6859. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed