Kate L Lapane

Kate L Lapane is a Professor in Quantitative Health Sciences and the Associate Dean of Clinical and Population Health Research at UMass Chan Medical School. She holds multiple positions across the institution including at the T.H. Chan School of Medicine in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences (Division of Epidemiology), and at the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences across several departments including Masters in Clinical Investigation, MD/PhD Program, Population Health Sciences, and Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program.

Dr. Lapane's primary research interests fall under medication issues in vulnerable populations, with a focus on drug utilization studies evaluating contextual, organizational, and policy impacts on prescription drug use among nursing home residents. Her work encompasses non-experimental comparative effectiveness research of medications in populations excluded from clinical trials, using large administrative claims databases to estimate medication risks. She has conducted large-scale intervention trials to improve medication-related issues in marginalized populations and led nursing home trials with expert panels. She has evaluated complementary and alternative medicine for osteoarthritis patients and focused methodologically on robustness of techniques in non-experimental comparative effectiveness research.

Dr. Lapane has maintained approximately 15 years of uninterrupted federal support for medication use studies and multisite randomized trials of novel care models. Her recent publications (2024-2025) demonstrate continued focus on medication safety in elderly populations, health disparities, and the intersection of social factors with health outcomes in nursing home settings. Her research spans geriatrics, pharmacology, epidemiology, and health services research with particular attention to vulnerable elderly populations.

Dr. Lapane earned her BA in Mathematics/Statistics from Boston University, MS in Statistics from the University of Rhode Island, and PhD in Epidemiology from Brown University. Her educational background in statistics and epidemiology provides strong foundation for her methodological contributions to comparative effectiveness research.

• Medication Safety in Vulnerable Populations
• Nursing Home Care and Policy
• Comparative Effectiveness Research Methods
• Geriatric Pharmacology
• Health Disparities Research