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

Moodie EE, Karran JC, Shortreed SM. A case study of SMART attributes: a qualitative assessment of generalizability, retention rate, and trial quality. Trials. 2016 May 14;17(1):242. doi: 10.1186/s13063-016-1368-3. PubMed

Simon GE, Beck A, Rossom R, Richards J, Kirlin B, King D, Shulman L, Ludman EJ, Penfold R, Shortreed SM, Whiteside U. Population-based outreach versus care as usual to prevent suicide attempt: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2016 Sep 15;17(1):452. doi: 10.1186/s13063-016-1566-z. PubMed

Shortreed SM, Laber E, Pineau J, Murphy SA. Imputing missing data from sequential multiple assignment randomized trials. In: Moodie EEM, Kosorok MR, editors. Adaptive Treatment Strategies in Practice: Planning Trials and Analyzing Data for Personalized Medicine. Philadelphia: SIAM; 2015. p.178-230. PubMed

Von Korff M, Turner JA, Shortreed SM, Saunders KW, Rosenberg D, Thielke S, LeResche LA. Timeliness of care planning upon initiation of chronic opioid therapy for chronic pain. Pain Med. 2016 Mar;17(3):511-520. Epub 2015 Dec 14. PubMed

Simon GE, Rossom RC, Beck A, Waitzfelder BE, Coleman KJ, Stewart C, Operskalski B, Penfold RB, Shortreed SM. Antidepressants are not overprescribed for mild depression. J Clin Psychiatry. 2015 Dec;76(12):1627-32. doi: 10.4088/JCP.14m09162. PubMed

Von Korff M, Dublin S, Walker RL, Parchman M, Shortreed SM, Hansen RN, Saunders K. The impact of opioid risk reduction initiatives on high-dose opioid prescribing for chronic opioid therapy patients. J Pain. 2016 Jan;17(1):101-10. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2015.10.002. Epub 2015 Oct 22. PubMed

Balderson BH, McCurry SM, Vitiello MV, Shortreed SM, Rybarczyk BD, Keefe FJ, Von Korff M. Information without implementation: a practical example for developing a best practice education control group. Behav Sleep Med. 2015 Oct 20:1-14.[Epub ahead of print]. PubMed

Lapham GT, Rubinsky AD, Shortreed SM, Hawkins EJ, Richards J, Williams EC, Berger D, Chavez LJ, Kivlahan DR, Bradley KA. Comparison of provider-documented and patient-reported brief intervention for unhealthy alcohol use in VA outpatients. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2015 Aug 1;153:159-66. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.05.027. Epub 2015 May 27. PubMed

LeResche L, Saunders K, Dublin S, Thielke S, Merrill JO, Shortreed SM, Campbell C, Von Korff MR. Sex and age differences in global pain status among patients using opioids long term for chronic noncancer pain. J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2015 Aug;24(8):629-35. PubMed

Friesen MC, Shortreed SM, Wheeler DC, Burstyn I, Vermeulen R, Pronk A, Colt JS, Baris D, Karagas MR, Schwenn M, Johnson A, Armenti KR, Silverman DT, Yu K. Identifying similar exposure scenarios in occupational questionnaire responses using hierarchical cluster models. Ann Occup Hyg. 2015;59(4):455-66. PubMed