Alum Receives 2022 Tyroler Student Prize Paper Award.
Alum Receives 2022 Tyroler Student Prize Paper Award
The Society for Epidemiologic Research has recognized Julie Petersen for her work defining and summarizing confounding bias in systematic reviews of observational studies.
School of Public Health alum Julie Petersen (CAS’08, SPH’16,’21) has been named the 2022 recipient of the Tyroler Student Prize Paper Award from the Society for Epidemiologic Research (SER). She will accept the award and give a presentation of her work at SER’s Annual Meeting in Chicago in June.

The award honors the legacy and leadership of Herman Alfred Tyroler, a world-renowned cardiovascular disease epidemiologist. It recognizes a paper written within the last two years of a student’s formal doctoral training in epidemiology, and only one student receives the award each year. Several SPH faculty members are previous recipients of the award, including Samantha Parker Kelleher, assistant professor of epidemiology, Matthew Fox, professor of epidemiology and global health, and Jaimie Gradus, associate professor of epidemiology.
“I’m incredibly honored to receive this award,” says Petersen. “I’m very proud of this work and excited to see it recognized in this way. I have also looked up to several of the past recipients so much throughout my training, so to receive this award alongside them is very humbling.”
The paper Petersen is being recognized for, which was recently published in Research Synthesis Methods, adds to existing guidance for defining and summarizing confounding bias in systematic reviews and meta-analyses of observational studies. The approach, called the confounder matrix, first brings together a group of content experts in the field to come to consensus regarding the core confounders that should be controlled for in the studies and the best method for measurement. Based on these results, a matrix then graphically ranks each study in the systematic review on how well they account for each confounder. Finally, the assessment of control adequacy is quantitatively incorporated into the meta-analysis, if applicable.
“Systematic reviews and meta-analyses tend to be the final step before a clinical recommendation is put forth, but this issue of residual confounding is often glossed over,” says Petersen, highlighting that even if all studies in a review are on the same topic, there are differences from one study to the next that could have important implications for the evidence synthesis. “It is important to understand whether or not certain studies are observing a stronger or weaker effect because of their inadequacy of confounder control or because they controlled for variables that are not really confounders, like causal intermediates. If so, it may be advisable to group those studies separately in the meta-analysis to see if it makes a difference in the summary results.”
Petersen also emphasizes that systematic reviews often include studies that have been done over the course of many years or decades and may not consider certain factors that are more important confounders given advancements in the field, such as structural racism or certain environmental exposures. “By using this approach and bringing together experts in the field who were not involved in these original studies, we are able to see a more objective point of view in terms of what variables should be controlled for,” she says. “This can help to highlight gaps in the field and provide the opportunity to give recommendations for future studies.”
Petersen graduated from SPH with her PhD in epidemiology in September 2021. She is currently a postdoctoral associate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, where she is using machine learning techniques to better understand the impact of dietary patterns on pregnancy health outcomes.
Founded in 1968, SER is the oldest and largest general epidemiology society in North America. It was established with a mission of fostering epidemiologic research and providing a forum for sharing the latest scientific advancements in the field.
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