PhD Student
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
James (Jamie) Heyward is a PhD student in Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH). Jamie holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from JHSPH and has >4 years of public health research experience, having most recently worked as a Research Data Analyst with the Johns Hopkins Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness. Jamie is in the General Epidemiology and Methods track, with funding from the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute (NHLBI) Pharmacoepidemiology T32 Training Grant. His dissertation research is focused on the use of real-world data (real world evidence) to optimize the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) based on known differences in their risk-benefit balance across distinct subgroups of like persons, known as heterogeneity of treatment effect (HTE). Although HTE is broadly recognized as contributing to significantly different outcomes across cohorts of patients exposed to the same therapy for the same indication, inferences based on this information are limited by factors such as sparse data, underdeveloped methods, and information bias. This is especially true for ICIs, which are a promising class of cancer drugs that have uncertain but significant benefits as well as side effects, and are widely used to treat lung cancer.