Title:

Senior Epidemiologist,
Slone Epidemiology Center

Professor of Epidemiology,
Boston University School of Public Health

Education:

M.P.H., 1985, Boston University School of Public Health
Sc.D., 1988, Harvard School of Public Health

Research Interests:

Dr. Palmer’s research has been in the areas of cancer epidemiology, reproductive epidemiology, and cardiovascular epidemiology, and has focused on women’s health. Early in her career, she designed and carried out the largest study yet of persistent gestational trophoblastic disease, demonstrating a strong association between long duration use of oral contraceptives and risk of this rare disease. She also published on oral contraceptive use and liver cancer with data from the Slone Case-Control Surveillance study, confirming a suspected association of long duration use with risk of primary liver cancer. Dr. Palmer was instrumental in designing and implementing the Black Women’s Health Study. She has served as co-investigator of the study since its inception in 1995. The Black Women’s Health Study, conducted in collaboration with investigators at Howard University, follows 59,000 black women from across the U.S. to assess risk factors for outcomes that include breast cancer, other cancers, hypertension, diabetes, systemic lupus erythematosus, uterine fibroids, and preterm birth. Since 2003, Dr. Palmer has been PI of a grant to collect cheek cell samples from Black Women’s Health Study participants for use in future analyses of low-penetrance genes in relation to cancer and other diseases. Dr. Palmer has also studied the long-term effects of exposure to diethylstilbestrol, a drug commonly given to pregnant women in the 1950’s and 60’s. She has been PI since 1995 of the Boston University center of an NCI collaborative follow-up study of DES-exposed cohorts. She has published preliminary findings on the relation of prenatal diethylstilbestrol exposure to risk of breast cancer, and will continue to study this important question with further follow-up data.