ScD, Epidemiology
ScM, Epidemiology
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA
BA, Human Biology
Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA
Alison Kawai is a Director of Epidemiology at RTI-HS where she provides scientific leadership and epidemiology expertise in the planning, design, and execution of studies. Dr. Kawai has 13 years' experience as a pharmacoepidemiologist, with extensive experience in using secondary data to assess the utilization and safety of medications and vaccines, including post-authorization safety and other regulatory studies. She has worked extensively in multi-site collaborations with data from electronic health records and claims, medical records and public health registries. She is experienced in conducting feasibility assessments and validation studies. Dr. Kawai has worked in a range of therapeutic and disease areas, including cancer, type 2 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and vaccines, with substantial expertise in vaccine safety studies and in pregnancy safety studies.
Before joining RTI-HS, Dr. Kawai was a Research Scientist and Principal Associate in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and Harvard Medical School, where she was an investigator within the Sentinel Program and the Vaccine Safety Datalink Project, two federally-funded postmarket safety surveillance systems that incorporate data from several health insurers across the US with the use of distributed databases. While there, she worked primarily on studies to evaluate vaccine safety in pregnant women and pediatric populations, as well as on infrastructure activities to develop methods and data capabilities to conduct these and other postmarketing safety studies. Dr. Kawai received her master’s and doctorate degrees from the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.