Has your child been prescribed a medication as part of treatment for ADHD? Should parents be concerned about reports of adverse heart effects possibly tied to these medications? How is the safety of these medications studied and how are recommendations for their use made?

In observance of Public Health Awareness Week 2013, this Ask the Expert webinar will show how public health data have a real impact on the lives of children with ADHD. Researcher Susanna Visser will take webinar participants through a real case study of how CDC and FDA used important public health data to learn whether ADHD medications posed an increased cardiac risk to children with the disorder. She will discuss the process of studying medication safety, how recommendations are made, and what health-care consumers can do to make well-informed decisions.

Medication safety is an important public health issue that affects families coping with the many challenges of ADHD. Parents and caregivers often wrestle with information and conflicting reports about medication safety. Making the right decision for their children’s treatment requires good information.

About Susanna Visser, MS

Susanna Visser, MS, is the lead epidemiologist for the Child Development Studies Team within the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ms. Visser's expertise includes the analysis and design of long-term and population-based studies of neurobehavioral and mental health conditions, including ADHD and Tourette Syndrome. As a lead author of several published research papers, she has completed research related to creating population-based estimates of how many people are affected by ADHD, rates of medication treatment among youth with ADHD, and factors associated with ADHD medication treatment.

Ms. Visser served as the committee epidemiologist for the American Academy of Pediatrics’ most recent ADHD diagnostic and treatment guidelines committee. She has also participated on technical expert panels for national surveys directed by the Maternal Child Health Bureau of the Health Resources and Services Administration, including the National Survey of Children’s Health. Ms. Visser currently directs and participates in federal research that investigates the developmental outcomes of youth with physical and social health risk factors.