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Experts
Sarah Ball
Vice President & Lead Scientific/Epidemiology Advisor
Contact
SarahBall@westat.comOverview
Sarah Ball, ScD, MS, MPH, is a Vice President for Clinical Research and Lead Scientific/Epidemiology Advisor for Westat’s Health Sector. She is an epidemiologist who is passionate about the innovative design and implementation of clinical research, developing creative solutions for complex data collection, and ensuring the synthesis and timely dissemination of research findings. With a background in maternal and child health and epidemiology, combined with more than a decade of experience in influenza and other respiratory diseases, her experience spans epidemiologic research, clinical study implementation, and program evaluation.
As Lead Scientific/Epidemiology Advisor, Ball is responsible for envisioning and expanding research capabilities (human, methodological, and technological) across Westat’s Health Sector, developing evidence of the validity and utility of Westat-led research products, and communicating with scientific communities concerning our competencies and scientific offerings. In addition to this work, she currently oversees a large electronic health record network examining COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness and has planned and implemented several multisite epidemiologic studies to examine vaccine effectiveness among high-risk populations.
Education
- ScD, Maternal and Child Health, Harvard School of Public Health
- MS, Maternal and Child Health, Harvard School of Public Health
- MPH, Epidemiology and Biostatistics/Social and Behavioral Health, Boston University School of Public Health
- BA, Psychology, Hamilton College
Areas of Expertise
Clinical Research Public Health Biostatistics and Epidemiology Epidemiologic StudiesTopics
COVID-19-
Perspective
VISION Vaccine Effectiveness Network: Why It SucceededSeptember 2023
With the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic behind us, interest has grown in understanding why the VISION Vaccine Effectiveness (VE) Network, launched in 2020…
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Expert Interview
Infectious Respiratory Diseases: What Have We Learned From COVID-19?July 2023
With the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic at an end, questions regarding what we’ve learned from the pandemic about tracking and reducing the spread of respiratory diseases are…
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Journal Article
Evidence of novel susceptibility variants for prostate cancer and a multiancestry polygenic risk score associated with aggressive disease in men of African ancestryEuropean Urology
2023
F. Chen, R.K. Madduri, A.A. Rodriguez, B.F. Darst, A. Chou, X. Sheng, A. Wang, J. Shen, E.J. Saunders, S.K. Rhie, J.T. Bensen, S. A. Ingles, R.A. Kittles, S.S. Strom, B.A. Rybicki, B. Nemesure, W.B. Isaacs, J.L. Stanford, W. Zheng, M. Sanderson, E.M. John, J.Y. Park, J. Xu, Y.