Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion

Profile

Carolyn Thorpe, PhD, MPH, is a tenured Professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy. She holds a joint appointment as Core Investigator with the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System's Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP).

Dr. Thorpe leads the VA-funded study, "Use and costs of low-value health services by Veterans in VA and non-VA settings."

As a pharmaceutical health services researcher with a focus on geriatric populations, Dr. Thorpe's federally-funded research program aims to improve the health of medically complex older adults, through studies on the quality and safety of prescribing and patient medication adherence. A major focus of this work is on deprescribing (i.e., the process of tapering or stopping medications when risks outweigh benefits, to minimize polypharmacy and improve patient outcomes). In addition, because older patients with multiple chronic conditions often rely on loved ones to help with day-to-day illness management and accessing medical care, caregiving and dyadic illness management has been a cross-cutting theme of this work. Dr. Thorpe leads and collaborates on VA research that addresses the following topics:

• Understanding determinants and health outcomes of deprescribing potentially inappropriate and/or low-value medications in older Veterans, with a focus on residents of VA Community Living Centers;
• Dual VA and non-VA health system use through Medicare and/or VA Community Care programs, and its relationship to Veterans’ quality, safety, and value of care;
• Development, implementation, and evaluation of policies and interventions to facilitate appropriate deprescribing as well as de-implementation of non-pharmacologic low-value health services in Veterans

Methodologically, Dr. Thorpe has expertise in linking real-world healthcare data (e.g., medical claims, prescription drug records, electronic health records, Minimum Data Set assessments) and applying pharmacoepidemiologic methods to measure exposure to medications, deprescribing, and adherence, and evaluate associated health outcomes. She also has extensive training and expertise in scale development and measurement and has applied this expertise to advance the conceptualization and measurement of medication nonadherence. She routinely integrates both quantitative and qualitative methods in her research to gain deeper insights into determinants of high-value medication use and medical care, inform improved measurement approaches, and enable translation of research findings into interventions and policies. Dr. Thorpe holds a strong belief in the value of interdisciplinary collaboration and works closely with clinical and organizational stakeholders to ensure that her research has a positive impact on healthcare delivery, policy, and patient outcomes.

Dr. Thorpe is a highly active research mentor, and over the past decade has served as the primary or co-mentor of 16 graduate students, 17 postdoctoral fellows, 9 junior faculty, and 12 pharmacy students or residents engaged in health services research, several of whom have won national awards for their research conducted under her mentorship. She currently serves as Co-Director of the VA Postdoctoral Fellowship in Medication Safety and Pharmacy Outcomes, which is a collaboration of CHERP and the national VA Center for Medication Safety (VAMedSAFE) within VA Pharmacy Benefits Management (PBM) and is designed to train pharmacists in research and quality improvement. Dr. Thorpe completed a VA post-doctoral fellowship in health services research at the Durham VA Medical Center after obtaining her PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of North Carolina, her MPH at George Washington University, and her BA at the University of Michigan.