Loria Pollack, MD, MPH

Lori A. “Loria” Pollack, MD, MPH, is the Senior Medical Officer for CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control (DCPC). Dr. Pollack was instrumental in the U.S. Cancer Statistics data visualization initiative. She advises on multi-state registry projects that focus on innovative approaches to cancer data collection and serves as CDC liaison to the American Joint Committee on Cancer.

Dr. Pollack joined CDC in 2002 as a U.S. Public Health Service officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service after receiving degrees in medicine and public health from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She completed Columbia University’s internal medicine residency in Cooperstown, New York, a second preventive medicine residency, and is board-certified in both specialties.

Her career includes remarkably diverse experience in chronic disease, infectious disease, and local public health. Dr. Pollack served from 2002 to 2012 in DCPC’s Epidemiology and Applied Research Branch, primarily characterizing the issue of cancer survivorship and leading national efforts related to quality of life and care after cancer treatment. In 2012, she was assigned to the Medical Director of the local health department in Atlanta, Georgia, where she was instrumental in designing a new HIV prevention program that included outreach to the most at-risk population, including linkage to treatment. She also spent three years (2013 to 2015) in CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, focused on preventing health care-associated illness and addressing antibiotic resistance. Dr. Pollack led a collaboration with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to develop antibiotic stewardship program indicators included in CDC’s National Health Safety Network annual hospital survey.

Dr. Pollack has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers and government reports in epidemiology, health service research, and quality improvement. She has served on many of CDC’s public health emergency responses, including a post-hurricane deployment, SARS, fungal meningitis from contaminated injections, and the domestic Ebola response. A driving theme in Dr. Pollack’s career is the translation and dissemination of research into practical guidance and tools to improve health and health care.

Dr. Pollack talks about the importance of cancer registry data to understanding how cancer affects the United States in this podcast.

The most recent and noteworthy articles Dr. Pollack has authored include—

• 2018 Racial and ethnic differences in survival of pediatric patients with brain and central nervous system cancer in the United States.External
• 2018 Capture of tobacco use among population-based registries: Findings from 10 National Program of Cancer Registries states.External
• 2018 The Standardized Antimicrobial Administration Ratio: A new metric for measuring and comparing antibiotic use.External
• 2017 Rates and trends of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia—United States, 2001–2014.External
• 2017 Capture and coding of industry and occupation measures: Findings from eight National Program of Cancer Registries states.External
• 2016 Estimating national trends in inpatient antibiotic use among US hospitals from 2006 to 2012.External
• 2016 A concise set of structure and process indicators to assess and compare antimicrobial stewardship programs among EU and US hospitals: results from a multinational expert panel.External
• 2016 Antibiotic stewardship programs in U.S. acute care hospitals: findings from the 2014 National Healthcare Safety Network Annual Hospital Survey.External
• 2016 KRAS testing and first-line treatment among patients diagnosed with metastatic colorectal cancer using population data from ten National Program of Cancer Registries in the United States.External
• 2016 Investigation of a cluster of Clostridium difficile infections in a pediatric oncology setting.External
• 2015 Identify, isolate, inform: Background and considerations for Ebola virus disease preparedness in U.S. ambulatory care settings.External
• 2014 Core elements of hospital antibiotic stewardship programs from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.External
• 2014 The role of public health in antimicrobial stewardship in healthcare.External
• 2014 Estimates of young breast cancer survivors at risk for infertility in the U.S.External
• 2012 A National Action Plan for cancer survivorship: Advancing public health strategies Cdc-pdf[PDF-1MB]
• 2011 Melanoma survival in the United States, 1992 to 2005.External
• 2011 Dissemination and translation: a frontier for cancer survivorship research.External
• 2010 A public health focus on infertility prevention, detection, and management.External
• 2009 Care of long-term cancer survivors: physicians seen by Medicare enrollees surviving longer than 5 years.External
• 2009 Enhancement of identifying cancer specialists through the linkage of Medicare claims to additional sources of physician specialty.External
• 2006 Health insurance coverage and cost barriers to needed medical care among U.S. adult cancer survivors age <65 years.External
• 2006 Use of the spatial scan statistic to identify geographic variations in late stage colorectal cancer in California (United States).External