Loren Lipworth, ScD, is a Research Professor of Medicine in the Division of Epidemiology within the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Her research focuses on identifying lifestyle, environmental and genetic risk factors for chronic diseases, in particular cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and neurocognitive outcomes, that may contribute to racial/ethnic, socioeconomic and other health disparities.
Dr. Lipworth's research utilizes both large-scale population-based epidemiologic cohorts and electronic health record databases. Specific areas of current research include endometrial cancer, kidney cancer and breast cancer; heart failure and abdominal aortic aneurysm; chemical, physical and built environment risk factors for cancer; and health outcomes related to occupational radiation exposure.
She is a co-investigator of the Southern Community Cohort Study (SCCS), a large prospective cohort study of over 86,000 primarily low income black and white participants from the southeastern United States, whose extensive data and biospecimen repository provide a unique resource for the study of chronic diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and kidney disease, including unexplained racial disparities.
She is a co-investigator of several ongoing studies of obesity-related biomarkers and metabolite profiles associated with diabetes, cardiometabolic and renal traits, and cancer, as well as studies of lifestyle and genetic factors that contribute to the high incidence of end-stage renal disease in blacks and whites in the SCCS.
Key Research Area
Social Determinants and Health Equity
Grants
- 2022-2025, NHLBI, Identifying Proteomics Risk Markers for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
- 2022-2026, NIEHS, Perfluoroalkyl substances and risk of kidney cancer in US men and women
- 2021-2025, NHLBI, Pharmacogenetic discovery in the GRADE comparative effectiveness type 2 diabetes clinical trial
- 2020-2025, NCI, Comprehensive molecular characterization of endometrial cancer, etiologic heterogeneity, and racial disparities
Honors and Awards
2021 COVID Special Service Award, Department of Medicine, VUMC