The Outstanding Junior Research Manuscript Award is targeted to clinician-educator junior faculty (Assistant Professor/Instructor) in the development stages of their careers. The junior investigator must be first author on an outstanding peer-reviewed geriatrics research journal article. Selection of award winners will be based on the novelty, methodological rigor, clarity of presentation, and potential to influence geriatrics practice, policy, or future research when considering the candidate’s article. Papers that were published between September 1 and August 31 of the previous year are eligible for consideration.
2024 Recipient: Katharina Jungo, PhD, MSc
Dr. Katharina Jungo is honored this year for her study “Optimising prescribing in older adults with multimorbidity and polypharmacy in primary care – Cluster randomized clinical trial,” published in BMJ in 2023. Dr. Jungo’s cluster randomized clinical trial of patients aged 65 or older with three or more chronic conditions and five or more long term medications was designed to compare the effects of discussion about medication in line with usual care with a primary care medication review intervention centered around an electronic clinical decision support system on appropriateness of medication and the number of prescribing omissions in older adults with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Although the results were inconclusive, this study is important because inappropriate prescribing is highly prevalent in older adults with multimorbidity.
She is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics (DoPE) and the Center for Healthcare Delivery Sciences (C4HDS) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Prior to that she was a postdoctoral researcher and team leader at the Institute of Primary Health Care of the University of Bern, Switzerland. Dr. Jungo was awarded a Postdoc Mobility grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, which funds her postdoctoral research at DoPE and C4HDS. Her research interests include the use of high-risk medications in older adults, novel digital health interventions to optimize prescribing practices that leverage new possibilities thanks to the digitalization, and patient-centered approaches to deprescribing. The findings of the OPTICA trial raise important questions about the use of novel digital health interventions with the aim of improving medication use in primary care settings. The publication exemplifies Dr. Jungo’s research goal to build an evidence base to drive policies and care model delivery to ensure that inappropriate medication use is reduced in older adults.
Past Recipients of the Outstanding Junior Research Manuscript Award
2023 Lauren Hunt, PhD, RN, MSN
2022 Claire Ankuda, MD, MPH, MSc
2021 Jennifer Watt, MD, PhD
2020 Anil Makam, MD, MAS
2019 Victoria Tang, MD, MAS
2018 Benjamin Han, MD, MPH
2017 Halima Amjad, MD, MPH
2016 Rebecca Brown, MD, MPH
2015 Helena M. Blumen, PhD
2014 S. Ryan Greysen
2013 Jane Saczynski, PhD