The Future of Pharmacoepidemiology

Interest in the field of pharmacoepidemiology by the pharmaceutical industry, government agencies, new trainees, and the public has increased greatly, and the realization of what pharmacoepidemiology can contribute to evaluating drug safety and comparative drug effectiveness has similarly increased. These trends will secure the continued increased use of pharmacoepidemiology to minimize the adverse public health impact of new drugs and to improve the use of existing drugs. The chapter highlights numerous different indicators of such growth as well as areas where new methodologic advances for performing pharmacoepidemiologic studies will likely develop, new content areas that are likely to be explored more and developed more, and new data resources that are likely to be available in the future. Increasing input from pharmacoepidemiologists into policy questions about drug approval and into litigation will likely continue as well.