The Unit of PharmacoEpidemiology & PharmacoEconomics (PE2) performs research into benefit-risk profiles of drugs, comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness to improve understanding of optimal utilization of pharmacotherapies. This research is organised within the graduate schools of Science and SHARE (medical faculty). Furthermore, our research is focussed into developing advanced pharmacoepidemiologic and -economic methods primarily applied to the areas of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, drug use in pregnancy and children and vaccines. Notably, our research directly contributes to the educational part of our tasks. Also, through various instruments (for example, external PhDs part-time in pharmacies), our research has very close links to pharmaceutical practice.
One of our research tools involves the IADB.nl database (see link in the right-hand upper corner), comprising prescriptions and related detailed drug- and patient informations of 50 pharmacies and 0.5 million population in the North-East of the Netherlands. The data go back to 1995 and enable advanced cross-sectional, longitudinal, cohort and case-control analyses. One major strenght of IADB.nl is the ability to track patient-based drug use through time and through pharmacies.
The aims of the Unit’s research are to (i) generate and optimise dynamic databases, computational tools and drug evaluations for the assessment valid and adequate drug profiles, using both observational and clinical-trial data; (ii) to underpin protocols, guidelines and vaccination schedules by targeted information on pharmacoepidemiological and -economic aspects; and (iii) to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of individual drugs, pharmacotherapeutic algorithms and vaccination programs, based on post-marketing surveillance data.
