Eleanor Pullenayegum

Eleanor is a biostatistician whose primary work focuses on developing methodology for longitudinal data and health economics. She trained at the University of Cambridge (BA and MA in mathematics), the University of Toronto (PhD in Biostatistics with Dr Andrew Willan) and the University of Waterloo (postdoctoral fellowship with Dr Richard Cook). She worked as a consulting biostatistician at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge before coming to Toronto to pursue her PhD. Before assuming her current position at SickKids, she was on faculty at McMaster in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics.

Research

Many studies follow patients over time and obtain measures of patients’ health and functioning as part of their usual care. This data is increasingly available for research. The challenge, however, is that patients often visit more frequently when they are unwell; ignoring this when analysing the data leads to overestimating the burden of disease. We develop methods to mitigate this bias.

When decision makers decide which treatments should be publicly reimbursed, they consider both the cost and the quality-adjusted life years attributable to the new treatment. Uncertainty in estimates of cost and quality-adjusted life years is crucial to evidence-informed decision making, however we recently showed that it is substantially underestimated. We are developing methods both to characterize the uncertainty correctly and to reduce the extent of uncertainty.

Education

• 2002–2005: PhD (Biostatistics), Department of Public Health Sciences (now Dalla Lana School of Public Health), University of Toronto
• 1999–2000: Cambridge Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics. Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge
• 1996–1999: BA (Hons) Mathematics. Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge

Experience

• 2023–Present: Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
• 2023–Present: Professor, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
• 2016–Present: Senior Scientist, Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto ON
• 2013–2016: Scientist, Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto ON
• 2013–2023: Associate Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto ON
• 2013–2023: Associate Professor, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto ON
• 2013–2016: Associate Professor (part-time), Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton ON
• 2012–2013: Associate Professor Biostatistician, Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton ON
  Father Sean O’Sullivan Research Centre St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, ON
• 2007–2013: Assistant Professor Biostatistician, Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton ON, Father Sean O’Sullivan Research Centre St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, ON
• 2006: Postdoctoral Fellow (supervisor: Dr. R.J. Cook), Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo ON
• 2000–2002: Research Assistant, Centre for Applied Medical Statistics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge UK

External funding

• April 2021–March 2026: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. Longitudinal data subject to irregular observation: developing methods for variable selection, causal inference, and measurement error. Pullenayegum EM (PI). $120,000. 

1. Che M*, Xie F, Thomas S, Pullenayegum E. Bayesian Models with Spatial Correlation Improve the Precision of EQ-5D-5L Value Sets. Med Decis Making. 2023 Jul;43(5):587-594. 
2. Pullenayegum, EM, Birken, C, Maguire, J, The TARGet Kids! Collaboration. Causal inference with longitudinal data subject to irregular assessment times. Statistics in Medicine. 2023; 42(14): 2361–2393.
3. Pullenayegum EM (PA), Scharfstein DO. Randomized trials with repeatedly measured outcomes: handling irregular and potentially informative observation. Epidemiologic Reviews 2022 Dec 21;44(1):121-137.
4. Aghababaei Jazi O*, Pullenayegum E (SRA), Variable selection in semiparametric regression models for longitudinal data with informative observation times. Stat Med. 2022 Jul 40; 41(17): 3281-3298.
5. Shams S*, Pullenayegum E (SRA). Design and sample size considerations for valuation studies of multi-attribute utility instruments. Stat Med. 2020 Oct 15;39(23):3074-3104.