Sarah Stallings, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Genetic Medicine within the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Dr. Stallings’ work has been in advancing infrastructure, guidance, and research on clinical data re-use, specifically in the intersection of electronic health record (EHR) and genomic data for both discovery and clinical implementation. Use of EHR data has highlighted access-derived health disparities, because health inequity translates directly into data sparsity for populations underrepresented in clinical research.
Underrepresentation in clinical research fuels inequity in health care innovation, as population differences in disease burden or intervention effectiveness remain unobserved. Engaging communities more broadly can impact all stages of clinical research, causing investigators and participants to collaborate in research effectively together, building trust, and reducing health disparities.
Dr. Stallings’ work in clinical data re-use discovery and implementation is shifting to include engagement, so the results are relevant for all populations and advance equity in healthcare and outcomes.