Til Stürmer, MD, PhD

About

Dr. Stürmer is an internist and epidemiologist with expertise in state of the art methods for nonexperimental treatment comparisons, including comparative effectiveness research, and real world evidence based on real world data. He has worked as a cancer epidemiologist, has over 20 years experience in analyzing claims data and merging claims data to other data sources, and is an internationally recognized leader in pharmacoepidemiology, propensity scores, and disease risk scores. 

Dr. Stürmer has led UNC-Chapel Hill’s pharmacoepidemiology program from 2008 through 2018 to become one of the largest and most recognized doctoral training programs in pharmacoepidemiology.  During that time, he was also the director of the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology overseeing its expansion to multiple members. 

He is a former president of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology, a former member on the FDA Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, and director of Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) at the NC TraCS Institute, UNC’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA).

Til Sturmer in the Gillings News

Honors and Awards

Associate Editor
2009-, American Journal of Epidemiology

Member
2010 - 2014, Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety

Member
2013 - , Epidemiology

Editor
2014 – 16, Pharmacoepidemiology Section, Current Epidemiology Reports

President
2013, International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE)

Teaching Interests

Funded through his ongoing R01 from the National Institute on Aging (R01 AG023178, now R01 AG056479) since 2005, Dr. Stürmer has published over 100 methodological and applied papers in the peer-reviewed literature highlighting advantages and limitations of propensity scores and disease risk scores when assessing the effects of medications in older adults based on nonexperimental study designs.

This work is especially important because older adults are often excluded from randomized trials and the nonexperimental assessment of treatment effects is often confounded by frailty that steers patients away from otherwise indicated treatments. 

Dr. Stürmer has developed study designs and analytic methods that allow researchers to address confounding by indication and frailty, making it possible to estimate unintended and intended treatment effects in older adults in specific settings. He is internationally recognized as a leader in this field.

Representative Courses

EPID 765 Methods and Issues in Pharmacoepidemiology | Syllabus

Research Activities

Dr. Stürmer has published over 300 papers in the peer-reviewed literature addressing the effects of medical interventions on outcomes that are relevant to patients and their providers and highlighting advantages and limitations of propensity scores and disease risk scores for nonexperimental study designs.

This work is especially important because older adults are often excluded from randomized trials and the nonexperimental assessment of treatment effects is often confounded by frailty that steers patients away from otherwise indicated treatments.

Dr. Stürmer has developed study designs and analytic methods that allow researchers to address confounding by indicating frailty, making it possible to estimate unintended and intended treatment effects in older adults in specific settings by limiting the potential for confounding. He is internationally recognized as a leader in this field.

Service Activities

Dr. Stürmer chairs the Department of Epidemiology since 2018. Previously, he has chaired the admissions committee of the Department of Epidemiology and represented the Department of Epidemiology in the School's APT committee.

Key Publications

Antidepressant class, age, and the risk of deliberate self-harm: A propensity score matched cohort study of SSRI and SNRI users in the USA. D. Azrael, Matthew Miller, V. Pate, T. Stürmer, S.A. Swanson, A. White (2014). CNS Drugs, 28(1), 79-88.

Antidepressant dose, age, and the risk of deliberate self-harm. Deborah Azrael, Matthew Miller, Virginia Pate, Til Stürmer, Sonja Swanson (2014). JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(6), 899-909.

Assessing the impact of propensity score estimation and implementation on covariate balance and confounding control within and across important subgroups in comparative effectiveness research. Kimberly Brodovicz, Cynthia Girman, Mugdha Gokhale, Tzuyung Kou, Til Stürmer, Richard Wyss (2014). Medical care, 52(3), 280-287.

Association between the choice of IV crystalloid and in-hospital mortality among critically ill adults with sepsis. Chris Beadles, Alan Brookhart, Peter Lindenauer, Brian Nathanson, Karthik Raghunathan, Soko Setoguchi, Andrew Shaw, Mihaela Stefan, Til Stürmer (2014). Critical Care Medicine.

Association between the choice of IV crystalloid and in-hospital mortality among critically Ill adults with sepsis. Chris Beadles, Alan Brookhart, Peter Lindenauer, Brian Nathanson, Karthik Raghunathan, Soko Setoguchi, Andrew Shaw, Mihaela Stefan, Til Stürmer (2014). Critical Care Medicine, 42(7), 1585-1591.

Education