Karen Cruickshanks, Ph.D.

Dr. Cruickshanks completed her Ph.D. in Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health in 1986 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), now in its 16th year, 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 PI of the EpiSense Audiometry Reading (EAR) Center for the Hispanic Community Health Study, a multi-center study including hearing testing for 16,000 Latinos. A major theme of her research is the link between subclinical atherosclerosis and the sensory and neurological disorders of aging.

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