Researchers across the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are working every day to improve the health and quality of life of veterans. At the Salem VA Medical Center in Virginia, that work focuses on topics ranging from chronic pain and aging to mental health and recovery. Partnering in these efforts is the Virginia Tech Center for Biostatistics and Health Data Science (CBHDS), where Assistant Director Alicia Lozano collaborates as lead biostatistician on multiple ongoing studies.

For Dr. Kris Ann K. Oursler, an infectious disease physician, Director of Geriatric Research and Education at the Salem VA, and Professor of Medicine at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, this collaboration has been essential to her team’s success. Her research focuses on healthy aging in veterans with complex health conditions, including HIV, COPD, chronic pain, frailty, and mental health disorders. 

“I run my own research group focused on healthy aging for veterans with multiple comorbidities,” Oursler said. “Alicia is an integral member of my team.” 

Dr. Oursler’s current work includes FitVet, a five-year, NIH-funded randomized controlled trial testing the efficacy of an exercise intervention conducted across three VA medical centers in Salem, Atlanta and Baltimore. The project required extensive data infrastructure and coordination among sites. Alicia’s contributions span the full research cycle, from randomization and oversight of data management to analysis and dissemination. 

“Alicia designed the data management process, built and implemented the REDCap database, oversaw its management, conducted the analyses, and translated the results into publications,” Oursler said. “Her expertise has been critical to navigating the size and complexity of this trial and ensuring its success.”

Oursler emphasized that high-quality biostatistical support is about more than leveraging technology; it’s about collaboration, trust, and transparency. 

“The integrity of our research has to be as good as it can possibly be,” she said. “You need excruciating attention to detail and thorough documentation to ensure full transparency. That may sound simple, but it’s very challenging when you’re managing multiple people, multiple sites, and multiple domains of data.”

While Oursler’s team focuses on physical health and aging, Dr. Rena E. Courtney, a licensed clinical psychologist at the Salem VA, is working to make pain treatment more accessible to veterans living in rural areas. Her current clinical trial tests a condensed model of interdisciplinary pain care that reduces the number of in-person visits while maintaining treatment quality.

“We’ve taken a model where you’d come to a hospital multiple days over several weeks and condensed that into one one-hour visit, followed by phone coaching,” Courtney explained. “It increases access to evidence-based pain care and lowers the burden for veterans.”

Courtney first connected with Lozano several years ago while developing her REDCap database for this trial, and the partnership has continued through her current funded projects. Under the mentorship of Dr. Oursler and working close with Lozano on analyses for an upcoming internal grant proposal, Courtney says the collaboration has been “completely critical” for producing high-quality results efficiently, including polished tables and well-organized data that free up her time for other aspects of her work.

“Here at the Salem VA, we don’t have a statistician on staff,” she said. “Without Alicia, I was doing everything myself for years, and it took three times as long. Having a statistician who can handle that portion allows me to focus my attention and efforts where it’s needed most. It’s absolutely essential.”

In the realm of mental health, Dr. Dana Holohan, Director of the Center for Traumatic Stress at the Salem VA, leads studies on post-traumatic stress disorder and co-occurring substance use disorders. Her team, with Lozano’s support, is testing whether PTSD treatment can be effectively integrated into existing substance use disorder programs—a shift that could make care more continuous and accessible.

“It’s looking at the feasibility and acceptability of implementing a specific treatment for PTSD while veterans are getting substance use disorder treatment,” Holohan said. “Delivering PTSD treatment while patients are already in care means they don’t need a separate course later...If this proves feasible and effective, it could become a standard of care for dual-diagnosis cases.”

Holohan first connected with CBHDS through the Center’s drop-in consulting hours and has since continued to partner on grants, data management, and analysis. Working with Lozano, she received support on grant preparation, generating randomization schemes, building REDCap databases, and now performing analyses following the completion of her study’s data collection. Holohan said the collaboration has helped her team innovate in ways that make research more efficient and effective.

“Alicia brought a novel idea and guided us in building a very useful tool inside REDCap for a difficult interview—integrating scoring metrics and interviewer notes all in one place,” Holohan said. “It’s actually one of my best accomplishments, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her expertise and hands-on support.”

For all three investigators, the partnership represents a shared goal: using data to better understand, and ultimately improve, the lives of veterans. From multi-site exercise trials to behavioral health studies, their work demonstrates how careful design, transparent data management, and collaboration can lead to real-world impact. 

“It’s been wonderful to have a partner who is exceedingly competent,” Holohan said. “It allows me to focus on the bigger picture,” highlighting how Lozano’s technical expertise frees her focus on broader research goals and innovation. 

Together, the VA researchers and CBHDS continue to build the evidence base that helps shape care for veterans. That is, work grounded in rigor, collaboration, and a shared commitment to improving health outcomes across the communities they serve.