Jeffrey Curtis MD

Dr. Jeffrey R. Curtis is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Curtis received a Medical Degree (MD) and a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from Oregon Health & Sciences University in Portland, OR. He subsequently completed a residency in internal medicine at Oregon Health & Science University and a fellowship in rheumatology at UAB. He completed a graduate program in Clinical Informatics at Stanford University and received his Master of Science (MS) degree in epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is board-certified in both rheumatology and clinical informatics.

Dr. Curtis holds the Harbert-Ball Endowed Professorship in Rheumatology. His research emphasis is on evaluating the safety and comparative effectiveness of medications and vaccines for rheumatic diseases. He also conducts both investigator-initiated and industry-sponsored clinical trials in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA), including large pragmatic and decentralized trials. He is the Director of the UAB Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics Research (PEER) Unit. PEER uses multiple large and linked data sources to study comparative effectiveness questions for chronic diseases. These data sources include national administrative data from Medicare and commercial health plans, electronic health record data, and large registries. Design and conduct of novel clinical trials with innovative designs, real-world evidence (RWE), digital health, and biosensors are among his research interests.

In 2012, he was awarded the Henry Kunkel Young Investigator Award by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and was accepted into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in 2016. Dr. Curtis was appointed as a member of the FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee. He served on the Core Expert Panel for ACR’s 2008, 2012, and 2015 Recommendations for the Use of Nonbiologic and Biologic Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs in RA. During 2020-2022, he led the ACR COVID Vaccine Guidance workgroup and now serves on the ACR Vaccine Guideline Committee.

He is the Co-PI of the mobile health-based, PCORI-funded Patient-Powered Research Network “ArthritisPower” registry (now enlarged and renamed “Patient Spot”). He is the PI of the UAB Coordinating Center of the ACR’s electronic health record-based registry Rheumatology Informatics System for Effectiveness (RISE) registry with EHR data from >1 million rheumatology patients and 1,000+ rheumatology providers.