Jessica Rubin
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Pain is common in liver disease and hard to treat safely. Up to 80 percent of patients with cirrhosis, advanced scarring of the liver, report pain, roughly twice the rate in the general population.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
cirrhosis
chronic liver disease
hepatology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Describe how pain is managed in patients with cirrhosis and measure rates of and risk factors for adverse outcomes tied to pain medications, using a cohort of over 500,000 Veterans built from national Veterans Health Administration electronic health records.
- Quantify the risk of major adverse outcomes in analgesic users versus nonusers with cirrhosis, applying pharmacoepidemiologic analysis and causal inference methods to observational records.
- Establish guiding principles for evidence-based pain management in cirrhosis through a Delphi consensus process, in which experts iteratively rate statements until agreement is reached.
- Generate the preliminary data needed for a future pragmatic trial testing whether disseminating this guidance changes provider prescribing and improves patient outcomes and quality of life.
More about the research
Because a damaged liver changes how drugs are processed, clinicians worry that common painkillers will cause harm, so many patients end up with their pain undertreated. There is little data on what is actually prescribed, what harms actually follow, and therefore almost no evidence-based guidance. This project uses real-world clinical records to fill that gap.
Why it matters
Patients with cirrhosis frequently live with untreated pain because clinicians lack evidence on which analgesics are safe for them. Quantifying real-world harms of specific pain medication classes in this population, and translating that into consensus guidance, could help clinicians treat pain more confidently and improve quality of life and outcomes for people with advanced liver disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Brad Constant
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Compare the effectiveness of anti-TNF and anti-interleukin biologics in children with Crohn's disease, using causal inference methods in a validated multicenter retrospective cohort.
Zachary Mannes
Columbia University, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Test whether cannabis use disorder is a risk factor for later opioid use disorder, opioid-related hospitalization, and fatal or non-fatal overdose. Use a longitudinal cohort built from VHA electronic health records.
Mehul Raval
Northwestern University, IL·Medicine & Clinical Research
Optimize the ERAS Neonatal Guidelines for newborn intestinal surgery through a modified Delphi consensus process with clinicians, parents and caregivers, and other stakeholders.
The school
University of California-San Francisco: 89 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 164 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.