Betsy Wasilevich, PhD, MPH

Elizabeth (Betsy) Wasilevich, PhD, MPH has over 20 years of experience, spanning both the public, private, and academic sectors, in epidemiology mentorship, public health surveillance, epidemiology research, and program evaluation, particularly related to chronic disease management, environmental health, and health services. Currently, as a senior epidemiologist at MDHHS, she provides epidemiologic support and technical oversight to diverse activities in environmental public health across the Division of Environmental Health at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. An area of her focus is leading several multidisciplinary teams, designing and implementing environmental epidemiology research studies and surveillance activities, especially related to drinking water PFAS contamination. The flagship study in this research area is the Michigan PFAS Exposure and Health Study (PiPEHS), one of the most comprehensive and cutting-edge investigations into the health effects of PFAS exposure being conducted in the country. She also led the development and provides technical oversight to two novel public health surveillance programs – the PFAS in Firefighters of Michigan Surveillance (PFOMS) program and the Michigan Chemical Exposure Monitoring (MiChEM) program. Formerly, she led innovative surveillance analyses and intervention evaluations to identify high risk populations with asthma and cancer and measure the quality of care patients receive. She has expertise in designing surveillance metrics, research projects, and conducting quantitative statistical analyses for investigations using administrative health care utilization data (including hospital billing and insurance membership/claims data), vital records, environmental data, and survey data, measuring the burden of chronic disease, high risk populations, quality of care, and program effectiveness. Lastly, she has a robust teaching career, instructing both undergraduate and graduate courses in epidemiology methods.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

1. Bailey JM, Wang L, McDonald J, Gray JS, Petrie JG, Martin E, Savitz DA, Karrer TA, Fisher KA, Geiger MJ, and Wasilevich EA. Immune Response to COVID-19 Vaccination in a Population with a History of Elevated Exposure to Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) through Drinking Water. Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology. 2023 June 19.

2. Kulkarni MT, Holzman C, Wasilevich E, Luo Z, Scheid J, Allswede M. Pregnancy Hypertension and its Associations with Pre-pregnancy Depression, Anxiety, Antidepressants, and Anxiolytics. Pregnancy Hypertension. 2019 Apr. 16: 67-74.

3. Schlemmer E, Mitchiner JC, Brown M, Wasilevich EA. Imaging During Low Back Pain Emergency Department Visits: A Claims-Based Descriptive Analysis. American Journal of Emergency Medicine. 2015 March; 33(3): 414-8.

4. Wasilevich EA, Rabito F, Johnson E, and Lefante J. Short-term Outdoor Temperature Change and Emergency Department Visits for Asthma Among Children – A Case-Crossover Study. American Journal of Epidemiology. 2012 Oct; 176 Suppl 7: S123-30.