Janel Hanmer, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine, the Medical Director of the UPMC Patient Reported Outcomes Center, and the Assistant Dean of Medical Student Research. Her research is mostly methodological, working on establishing national normative values for health measures, evaluating the effects of mode of administration, and testing different methods to model populations with multiple health conditions. Dr. Hanmer’s recent work has been focused on developing a new health utility score for the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS). This work combines item response theory and econometric theory. The resulting PROMIS-Preference (PROPr) score is now being evaluated for population health monitoring and longitudinal validity. In addition, Dr. Hanmer is the Medical Director for Patient Reported Outcomes at UPMC. In this role, she evaluates the impact and use of patient reported outcomes in clinical settings. Students who work with her often use these data in projects that describe the health-related quality of life of clinical samples.
Education & Training
- BS, Carnegie Mellon University, 1999
- PhD, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2007
- MD, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2010
- Residency (Internal Medicine), University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, 2013
Representative Publications
Hanmer J, Lawrence WF, Anderson JP, Kaplan RM, Fryback DG. Report of nationally representative values for the non-institutionalized U.S. adult population for 7 health-related quality of life scores. Medical Decision Making. 2006;26(4):391-400.
This analysis of the National Health Interview Survey and Medical Expenditure Panel Survey was the first to provide age- and sex-adjusted national normative values of health-related quality of life scores for use in cost-effectiveness analyses.
Hanmer J, Cella D, Feeny D, Fischhoff B, Hays RD, Hess R, Pilkonis PA, Revicki D, Roberts M, Tsevat J, Yu L. Selection of key health domains from PROMIS® for a generic preference-based scoring system. Quality of Life Research. 2017;26(12):3377-3385.
With input from measurement experts and community members, the authors selected 7 Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS®) domains that can be used to create a preference-based score: Physical Function, Pain Interference, Depression, Cognitive Function-Abilities, Fatigue, Ability to Participate in Social Roles and Activities, and Sleep Disturbance.
Dewitt B, Cella D, Feeny D, Fischhoff B, Hays RD, Hess R, Pilkonis PA, Revicki D, Roberts M, Tsevat J, Yu L, Hanmer J. Estimation of a preference-based summary score for the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System: The PROMIS®-Preference (PROPr) Scoring System. Medical Decision Making. 2018;38(6):683-698.
This manuscript describes the estimation of the PROMIS-Preference (PROPr) score that is the first score to combine item response theory and multiattribute utility theor.
Hanmer J, Dewitt B, Yu L, Tsevat J, Roberts M, Revicki D, Pilkonis PA, Hess R, Hays RD, Fischhoff B, Feeny D, Condon D, Cella D. Cross-sectional validation of the PROMIS-Preference scoring system. PLoS One. 2018;13(7):e0201093.
In two large samples from the US general population, this study provides evidence of construct validity of the PROMIS-Preference (PROPr) score, a recently developed summary score for the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS).
Click here for a more complete bibliography of Dr. Hanmer’s works.
Research Interests
- Patient reported outcomes
- Health utility measurement
- Population-based datasets
- Quality of life research