Ghandeer Dawwas, PhD, MSc, MBA, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is a pharmacoepidemiologist whose research explores the effectiveness and safety of therapeutic alternatives to enhance treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases. Her goal is to use readily available healthcare data to provide stakeholders including patients, clinicians, payers, and policymakers with evidence on the risk/benefit tradeoffs of therapeutic alternatives to improve clinical decision-making.
Although randomized clinical trials are the gold standard in evidence-based medicine, they have limited generalizability, often compare a drug to a placebo or standard of care, and lack reliability to detect rare or latent adverse drug events. Dr. Dawwas' research is complementary to randomized clinical trials in that it investigates: (a) the effectiveness and safety of medications in populations under-represented or excluded from randomized clinical trials such as those with multiple chronic conditions (e.g., atrial fibrillation and valvular heart disease, Dawwas et al. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2021); (b) therapeutic exchangeability within the same class of drugs (e.g., apixaban vs. rivaroxaban, Dawwas et al. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2022); and (c) post-approval safety signals that are unlikely to be detected in pre-marketing studies (e.g., sodium-glucose co-transport-2 inhibitors and diabetic ketoacidosis, Dawwas et al., Diabetes Care, 2022).
The major themes of Dr. Dawwas' research center on the evaluation of anticoagulants, antidiabetics, research methods, and the intersection of comparative effectiveness research and health policy.
Key Research Area
Cardiovascular Epidemiology
Grants
2023- 2026, NHLBI: R00HL159230, Anticoagulant Use, Safety, and Effectiveness For Venous Thromboembolism Prevention in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients
2021-2024, ASH, Use, Effectiveness and Safety of Anticoagulants in Stroke Patients
Honors and Awards
- National Best article of the month, Emergency medicine reviews and perspectives EM: RAP
- American Society of Hematology Clinical Fellow Scholar Award
- American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy ACCP Ambulatory Care Practice and Research Networks Paper of the Year
- Graduate Research Grant Winner, Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society
- Best Research Poster Presentation Award, International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research
- Second-Best Abstract Award, International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology & Therapeutic Risk Management
- Love of Learning Award
- American Association of University Women International Doctoral Fellowship
- Phi Kappa Phi
- Alpha Epsilon Lambda