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Motivated to improve drug safety and deliver tailored treatment solutions for patients with chronic conditions, Ebere Okpara is a researcher who uses advanced data science methods, such as causal inference modelling, to analyse large-scale healthcare datasets.
Okpara began her career in hospital and retail pharmacy, where her interest in long-term patient outcomes led her to pursue research.
In an exclusive interview with Pulse, Okpara shared how her work in pharmacoepidemiology is transforming real-world data into actionable insights that support safer, more effective, and equitable healthcare.
“Clinical trials show us how drugs work under ideal conditions. Real-world evidence helps us understand how treatments perform in everyday life,” she explained.
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Okpara explained that this field of research is very important for informing clinical decisions, subsequent regulatory actions, and even healthcare policies.
“It is a scientifically rigorous field,” she told Pulse. “It involves causal inference modelling as statistical techniques to estimate cause-and-effect relationships between treatments and outcomes,” she explained.
Okpara applies her expertise across a range of therapeutic areas, including respiratory diseases, oncology, cardiology, neurology, and women’s health. This is reflected in several of her research endeavours. As a co-author, she has contributed to influential, peer-reviewed publications that have been cited globally.
One of such is a systematic review and meta-analysis on oesophageal cancer treatment published in Cancer Medicine, have been cited by researchers across institutions in China, India, Greece, Switzerland, and the United States, including Stanford University.
Reflecting on the urgency of such work, Okpara explained: “Cancer remains a leading cause of death globally, with millions of new cases diagnosed each year. While there isn’t a definitive cure, advances in treatment have transformed many cancers into chronic, manageable conditions. Still, there’s a need to optimise treatment strategies, define meaningful endpoints, and evaluate effectiveness and safety in diverse, real-world populations.”
Okpara has also worked on prostate cancer, one of the most diagnosed cancers among men worldwide and a leading cause of cancer-related mortality. She co-authored a real-world comparative study of enzalutamide vs. abiraterone in older men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting 2024, the study reached a global audience of oncology experts and provided valuable real-world insights to inform treatment selection in prostate cancer patients with high cardiovascular risk.
She prides herself on being a mixed-methods researcher who combines quantitative analysis to determine causal relationships between treatments and outcomes with qualitative research that explores patients’ lived experiences. Currently, Okpara is collaborating on a qualitative study aimed at understanding the behavioural factors influencing why patients with COPD are non-adherent to inhaler medications.
“It’s not enough to generate data; we need to make sure it translates into decisions that actually improve people’s lives,” Okpara explained.
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Making impact one research at a time
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Over the past two years, Okpara has been a key contributor to ACTION, a five-year NIH-funded randomised controlled trial supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The study is titled 'A Lifestyle Physical Activity Intervention for Minority Women with Asthma: From Efficacy to Implementation.'
It is a multisite collaboration between the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois, Chicago. This study focuses on developing and implementing a tailored physical activity intervention through health technology for Black women living with asthma.
Working alongside clinicians, implementation scientists, and data analysts, Okpara contributes to an interdisciplinary team aiming to translate evidence into practice and improve long-term respiratory health outcomes for minority women.
“This work is especially meaningful to me because it’s not just about data, it’s about representation, about co-creating solutions with the communities most impacted,” she noted.
This project has already led to co-authorship on the published study protocol in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) and an abstract published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI), highlighting the depth of her research collaborations.
Okpara’s commitment to excellence extends beyond research. She co-organised ComSciCon Chicago 2023, training graduate students in science communication. As the 2024/2025 President of the ISPE Student Chapter at the University of Illinois, Chicago, she leads initiatives connecting students with pharmacoepidemiology professionals and opportunities.
Internationally, she contributes to FIP’s early-career publication team, supporting science communication. Her work has earned multiple honours, including the Department of Pharmaceutical Systems, Outcomes, and Policy Award of Excellence in 2023 and 2024.
As part of her doctoral research, she is conducting studies focused on COPD, analysing treatment patterns, and cardiovascular outcomes using real-world data to support effective care for patients with multiple chronic conditions.
"The idea is that every data set represents people, so it is my job to use that data to make patients' experiences visible and useful for decision-making," she added.
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