Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion

Profile

Mohamed Seedahmed, MD, MPH, is a Core Investigator at CHERP, a Staff Pulmonologist at VA Pittsburgh Health System (VAPHS), and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine. Originally from Khartoum, Sudan, Mohamed completed his undergraduate medical training at the University of Khartoum, followed by an Internal Medicine residency at WellStar Atlanta Medical Center. Mohamed then matriculated to the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) for his Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine fellowship. Following his passion for research, he earned a master's degree in public health with an applied epidemiology focus from Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. He also completed a 2-year Clinical Research Informatics Postdoctoral fellowship at UCSF.

Dr. Seedahmed's scholarship focuses on leveraging real-world data from electronic health records (EHR) to study the heterogeneity of sarcoidosis and its impact on the natural history of the disease, which disproportionately impacts the Black community and the Veteran population. Through his research, he aims to inform innovative clinical care for sarcoidosis patients and support evidence-based practices that improve clinical outcomes. His work uses "big data" generated from clinical encounters to understand the epidemiology of sarcoidosis among U.S. Veterans, identify associated risk factors, examine mortality trends, and develop innovative and reliable computational algorithms that can efficiently map sarcoidosis cases and different clinical phenotypes in EHR. This foundational work will set the stage to generate high-quality sarcoidosis-related research variables that can help ascertain disease progression.

Concerns about diverse populations and health equity are among the most consistent throughlines in Dr. Seedahmed’s professional output. One of his very first publications was a commentary on workforce diversity. Across abstracts and peer-reviewed publications, the majority of his analyses of sarcoidosis have also helped to advance our understanding of health disparities. He has identified unique risks to Veterans, increased incidence among Black Americans, and a narrowed racial mortality gap. These reflect the nuance and care he has brought to debates about equity longitudinally.

His current research focuses on studying the impact of environmental exposure on the natural history of sarcoidosis. To complete this research, he received a diversity supplement award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (3R01HL157533-02S1). The preliminary data from this work will serve as a foundation for his upcoming faculty-level Career Development Award application. This research will pave the way for forthcoming projects to evaluate different management approaches in sarcoidosis through comparative effectiveness research.