Dr. April W. Armstrong believes that sound clinical practice needs to be rooted in evidence-based medicine. Her research team strives to understand how skin diseases affect patients, how novel therapies may reduce the burden of skin diseases, and how specialist healthcare can be delivered to patients more effectively and efficiently.

Specifically, our research team focuses on studying chronic inflammatory skin diseases, including but not limited to psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and hidradenitis suppurativa. Our team is continuing to discover how chronic skin diseases affect patient outcomes, how novel therapies impact patients’ lives, and how we can use technology to increase access to specialist care for underserved patients. Our research team has conducted over 120 clinical studies and published over 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Below are examples of scientific areas that our research team has explored:

Evaluating technology-enabled healthcare delivery models to increase access to dermatological care.We found that telehealth, especially teledermatology, has the potential to increase access to dermatological care. However, the delivery and reimbursement of teledermatology must be carefully considered for successful dissemination of this technology-enabled model. Novel models of teledermatology needs to focus on collaborative care of the patient by the specialist and the primary care provider.

Investigating comorbidities associated with chronic inflammatory skin diseases.We have conducted multiple studies using large databases examining the relationship between skin diseases and comorbidities, especially in the area of psoriasis. For example, we found that psoriasis patients have more difficult-to-control hypertension compared to non-psoriatic, hypertensive patients. We also found that psoriasis patients with diabetes have higher rates of microvascular and macrovascular complications compared to diabetic patients without psoriasis. Finally, we observed that psoriasis patients with longer duration of disease have a higher prevalence of angiographically confirmed coronary artery disease than patients without psoriasis.

Exploring effective interventions to reduce atopic dermatitis (AD) disease burden.Our group has examined health outcome measures used in AD, studied the appropriate use of systemic drugs in patients with moderate-to-severe AD, and devised video-based education to reduce AD severity.

Publications

Click here for publications from Dr. Armstrong’s research team.