Research Interests

1) Epidemiology of ocular diseases

With a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology and a PhD thesis focused on the prevalence of visual impairment and blindness in the Brazilian Amazon Region, my expertise lies in the realm of epidemiology. I am consistently engaged in various projects aimed at estimating the epidemiology of ocular diseases at both national and global levels. Public health policies targeting visual impairment and blindness heavily depend on well-conducted epidemiological studies, which provide essential data to authorities for informed decision-making. Thus, the significance of meticulously conducted research cannot be overstated in accurately identifying these estimates.

I am currently a member of the Vision Loss Expert Group, an international group of ophthalmic epidemiologists that provides global technical leadership in the development and improvement of epidemiological estimates for vision impairment and blindness.

Furthermore, my focus extends to evaluating underserved groups and minorities, often overlooked in mainstream project estimations. These specific minority populations typically experience higher frequencies of visual impairment and, as a result, the burden of visual impairment and blindness determined for the general population may be underestimated and the public health policies derived from it may insufficiently attend the demand of those minority groups.

2) Health systems performance evaluation

More than estimating the burden of disease, I am interested in evaluating how is the health system performance in response to the specific situations. Our group has been working mainly with the Brazilian National Health System (Sistema Unico de Saude - SUS), a system that provides medical attention to the entire Brazilian population in every medical specialty, from the most basic health attention to the most complex procedures provided in tertiary hospitals.

We use the Brazilian Public Health System Information Database (DATASUS) as the primary data source for our analyses. DATASUS represents the primary effort of Brazilian Federal Government to collect data from the national health system and includes information from all public health hospitals throughout the country. This database, originally intended for administrative purposes, contains data on all hospitalizations and procedures covered by SUS in Brazil.

We are currently working on sub-specialties, developing partnerships with different institution to deep into health-economics analyses, and performing comparisons among systems from different countries. We had also worked with databases from unique systems, as the Olympic Committee health service system during the Olympic and Paralympic Games Rio 2016, and the SAS Telemedicine Project.

3) Natural history of disease, diagnosis, and treatment outcomes

I am involved in different projects aiming to understand the natural history of ocular diseases in both humans and animals. Studies with humans are often subject to selection and information bias as our findings rely on cross-sectional information from patients in different stages of diseases, which limit our understandings. Currently, I am conducting longitudinal research involving a cohort of free-ranging macaques with natural occurring ocular disorders aiming to understand the mechanisms of disease occurrence and progression while correlating clinical and molecular data. 

Diagnosis in ophthalmology is a dynamic field of study with innovations being developed each day. Our group is involved in several projects aimed at identifying the most advanced technologies that offer precise diagnoses, ultimately enhancing patient care. Recently, I have been focusing on incorporating novel molecular biology methods into our diagnostic approaches. On the same hand, new treatments are often discussed and our group actively participate in studies designed to evaluate treatment outcomes based on different therapies. 

My research includes projects in different areas within the ophthalmology such as ocular oncology, pediatric ophthalmology, glaucoma, electrophysiology, color vision, among others.