Michele Jonsson-Funk, PhD

Michele Jonsson-Funk in the Gillings News

Honors and Awards

Fellow
2018-present, International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology

Research Fellow
2005-present, Sheps Center for Health Services Research, UNC Chapel Hill

Member
2004-present, Delta Omega (Honorary Public Health Society), Theta Chapter

Research Activities

Dr Jonsson Funk’s research takes place at the intersection of pharmacoepidemiology, methods for estimating valid treatment effects in observational data, and women’s health research. 

Her ongoing research studies use data from Medicare, IBM Watson Health Analytics’ Marketscan data, and the Carolina Data Warehouse for Health (CDW-H) – an electronic medical record warehouse that brings together rich clinical and administrative data on over 2 million patients seen across the spectrum of care by providers in the UNC Health Care System. More recently, she has led efforts at UNC to link complementary data (e.g. Medicare claims with the UNC CDW-H). 

Her methods research has assessed the performance of propensity scores and doubly robust estimators. In her current R01, she is evaluating alternative methods for identifying treatment effect heterogeneity – specifically sex differences in the safety and effectiveness of cardioprotective medications. She has contributed to research on reducing measurement error in studies using claims data, methods for generalizing treatment effects from clinical trials to real world populations and improving control of confounding by frailty. 

In collaboration with clinical colleagues and graduate students in epidemiology, she has addressed a range of important topics related to women’s health including treatment of pelvic floor disorders, effects of medication use during pregnancy, health outcomes after sterilization, and effects of diabetes medications on breast and endometrial cancer risk. 

Key Publications

Lifetime risk of stress urinary incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse surgery. Mitchell Conover, M Conover, Michele Funk, M Jonsson Funk, Catherine Matthews, C Matthews, Virginia Pate, V Pate, Jennifer Wu, J Wu (2014). Obstetrics and Gynecology, 123(6), 1201-1206.

Trends in glyburide compared with insulin use for gestational diabetes treatment in the United States, 2000-2011. Daniel Benjamin, D Benjamin, Kim Boggess, K Boggess, M. Brookhart, M Brookhart, W Camelo Castillo, Wendy Castillo, Michele Funk, M Jonsson Funk, Til Stürmer, T Stürmer (2014). Obstetrics and Gynecology, 123(6), 1177-1184.

Subclinical Hypothyroidism and Risk for Incident Ischemic Stroke among Postmenopausal Women. T Edwards, A Giri, K Hartmann, G Heiss, M Jonsson Funk, V LeGrys, C Lorenz, J Robinson, R Schectman (2014). Thyroid : official journal of the American Thyroid Association.

Population Health: Modest Glycaemic Improvements in a Pregnant Cohort with Mild Glucose Intolerance Decreased Adverse Outcomes. E Berggren, K Boggess, M Jonsson Funk (2014). Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology.

Direct, indirect, total, and overall effectiveness of the rotavirus vaccines for the prevention of gastroenteritis hospitalizations in privately insured us children, 2007-2010. Sylvia Becker-Dreps, M. Brookhart, Michele Funk, Catherine Panozzo, Virginia Pate, Til Stürmer, David Weber (2014). American Journal of Epidemiology, 179(7), 895-909.

Staff/Administrative Duties

Head, Pharmacoepidemiology Program

2018-present, Dept of Epidemiology, UNC

Affiliate faculty

2018-present, Injury Prevention Research Center, UNC Chapel Hill

Board Member

2017- present, International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE)

Advisory Board Member

2017-present, Epidemiology & Clinical Advisory Board (ECAB), Observational Pharmaco-Epidemiology Research & Analysis (OPERA), Epividian

Leader

2016-present, Pharmacoepidemiology Research Lab Network, Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) Program, UNC Chapel Hill

Advisory Board Member

2016-present, Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) Program, UNC Chapel Hill

Chair

2015, Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) Special Interest Group (SIG), 

International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE)

Education