Alumni Profile

Catherine Wetmore joined the Post-Graduate Fellowship program in 2010 and worked with two research teams while at IHME: Integrated Surveillance Systems and Monitoring Costs. Her research involved a unique combination of local and international projects, most of which required primary data collection.

She played a major role in the design and implementation of the Monitoring Disparities in Chronic Conditions (MDCC) Study, a multifaceted effort funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to understand the extent of, and reasons for, disparities in chronic disease risk factors, prevalence, and health service interventions. This project involves innovative linkages of household surveys, physical measurements, medical record reviews, and existing administrative databases to produce a high-quality cost effective surveillance system for tracking health disparities at the local level. Although recruitment and data collection are continuing, nearly 2,000 residents of King County, Washington, participated in the MDCC study during Dr. Wetmore's fellowship.

Dr. Wetmore also led the team of IHME researchers providing technical assistance to the Inter-American Development Bank for Salud Mésoamerica 2015, a results-based funding initiative supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carlos Slim Health Institute, and the government of Spain. This initiative seeks to reduce inequities in reproductive and child health affecting the poorest quintile of the population in Mesoamerica. Dr. Wetmore performed a wide range of activities for this project, including target-setting, sampling design, survey development, data management, analysis, and report writing for a series of household surveys, which are ongoing (or soon to be initiated) in eight Mesoamerican countries.

In addition, Dr. Wetmore gained valuable experience in health services research during the first year of her fellowship when she developed the Costs and Constraints survey, a computer-assisted survey covering econometric indicators of health care delivery and constraints in low- to middle-income countries. Data collected using this survey will feed into the Access, Bottlenecks, Constraints, and Equity project, which aims to develop new standards and enhanced tools to inform optimal resource allocation for health care delivery. Dr. Wetmore oversaw implementation of the Costs and Constraints survey across a range of health services delivery platforms in Lebanon. Data collection is underway or soon to be initiated in several additional countries worldwide.

Published Works