Faculty initiate Wendy King (EPI ’04) is associate professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health. Her work is focused on the design, coordination, and analysis of multicenter cohort studies and randomized clinical trials. She is currently the principal investigator of the data coordinating center for three prospective cohort studies: an evaluation of psychopathology and quality of life over seven years among adults from three U.S. centers who underwent bariatric surgery; an eight-site study of the progression of hepatitis B in adults coinfected with HIV; and an ancillary study of the Hepatitis B Research Network (HBRN), a 28-site study of chronic hepatitis B, to investigate the utility of novel markers of disease. She also serves as a coinvestigator of the HBRN.
Previously, King was a coinvestigator of the landmark study, the Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery-2 (LABS-2), which followed approximately 2,500 U.S. adults for seven years following bariatric surgery, as well as three randomized controlled trials of lifestyle (i.e., physical activity and diet) interventions. She has studied bariatric surgery for 15 years, with a focus on the durability of weight loss and improvements in comorbidities of obesity, including the role of physical activity and psychopathology, as well as the risk of substance use disorder. Her work in this area, including an invited review article and two book chapters, has received national media coverage and led to invited talks at national conferences. Over the last decade, King has received numerous awards for her work in the field of bariatric surgery, including the Circle of Excellence Award from the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS); the ASMBS Integrated Health Research Award, first place; and the Allied Health Research Award, first place. In addition, many of King's articles have been covered by national and international news outlets and she has published in high-impact journals, including three first-author and four coauthor reports in JAMA. King has served on the editorial board of Surgery for Obesity and Related Disease since 2010 and Obesity Science and Practice since 2015.
4/22/2019