Karen Cruickshanks

Dr. Cruickshanks completed her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health in 1987 and has been a faculty member at UW-Madison since 1990. Her research program is studying the health problems of aging through epidemiological cohort studies. The Epidemiology of Hearing Loss Study (EHLS) is funded by the National Institute on Aging (AG11099) to study hearing, olfactory, and cognitive impairments in a population-based cohort of 3500 older residents of Beaver Dam, WI. The focus of this research is on the roles of inflammation and vascular factors on age-related disorders. In 2004, a new study of the adult offspring of the EHLS participants was funded by the National Institute of Aging, National Eye Institute, and National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (AG021917) to study the genetic and environmental factors which contribute to age-related sensory impairments. She is the Director of the EpiSense Audiometry Reading (EAR) Center for studying hearing in the Hispanic Community Health Study, a multi-center study of 16,000 Latinos, and the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) study. A major theme of her research is the link between subclinical atherosclerosis and the sensory and neurological disorders of aging.

Affiliations/Associations

• Institute on Aging, UW
• Society for Epidemiologic Research
• Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
• American Epidemiological Society
• Association for Research in Otolaryngology

Curriculum Vitae

Karen Cruickshanks CV