Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute

08/10/2026

For people at higher risk of , staying on track with screening can be lifesaving. Yet many do not get annual lung scans. A new study led by Karen Wernli, PhD, found that well-timed reminders to doctors and patients helped more people return for yearly screening.

Timely

07/17/2026

In a new Q&A, Beverly Green and Jess Mogk share how KPWHRI’s Center for Accelerating Care Transformation (ACT Center) partnered with Kaiser Permanente Washington to evaluate and improve its innovative HPV self-collect program, which has boosted cervical cancer screening rates and benefited patients and care teams.

How Kaiser Permanente Washington partnered with the ACT Center to make screening easier for patients and care teams.

06/22/2026

Routine eye exams could help identify people at increased risk of Alzheimer's disease by assessing signs of age-related macular degeneration, according to new research from KPWHRI biostatistician Chloe Krakauer, affiliate investigator Cecilia S. Lee, and colleagues.

Routine eye exams could help identify people at increased risk by assessing signs of age-related macular degeneration.

06/09/2026

KPWHRI’s Dr. Beverly Green discusses her groundbreaking research on HPV self-collection, which allows people to skip the usual pelvic exam for cervical cancer screening. Kaiser Permanente Washington was the first health care organization in the U.S. to offer this screening option. Learn more about the research behind this innovation: https://kpwashingtonresearch.org/news-and-events/recent-news/news-2023/simple-solution-help-catch-cervical-cancer-early

06/04/2026

Missed this year's ACT Research Symposium? Get caught up with our wrap-up and learn about new findings, new resources, and other advances in brain aging research.

The 2026 ACT Research Symposium showcased innovations and milestones, celebrating 5 years of expanded funding

05/29/2026

KPWHRI’s spring newsletter is hot off the presses! Highlights in this issue include the start of a C. diff vaccine trial, insights on dementia prevention and screening, a newly funded study on antinausea medications in pregnancy, and how HPV self-collection has boosted cervical cancer screening at Kaiser Permanente Washington: https://kpwashingtonresearch.org/index.php/news-and-events/newsletter

05/20/2026

KPWHRI has been at the forefront of research on a new approach to cervical cancer screening: giving people the option to skip the usual pelvic exam and collect their own samples to test for HPV. Now, a study from KPWHRI’s Beverly Green and the Center for Accelerating Care Transformation (ACT Center) shows how Kaiser Permanente Washington’s HPV Self-Collect Program is helping more people get screened and benefiting both patients and clinicians: https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.25.0420. NEJM Catalyst

Did you know that 1 in 4 women don’t receive regular HPV screenings to prevent cervical cancer? Kaiser Permanente researchers are exploring ways to change that.

In 2023 we became the first health care organization in the U.S. to offer HPV self-collection test kits. Research published today shows that test kits are helping more people get screened.

Read more: https://k-p.li/4cKz42Q

04/29/2026

Day 2: Alifiya Kapasi, assistant professor with the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, discussed how Alzheimer’s disease pathology and vascular brain injury commonly coexist, but the link between vascular and degenerative mechanisms is not well understood. She highlighted new approaches to quantify vasculature alterations in postmortem brain tissue.

04/29/2026

Day 2: Paul Crane of the University of Washington School of Medicine presented findings on one of the ACT Study’s main research questions: whether Alzheimer’s disease is a single disease or whether there are different subtypes. If distinct natural histories point to subtypes with underlying biological underpinnings, these could be selectively targeted for treatments. Dr. Crane shared that research continues to advance and there are now extensive data across multiple studies, with the ACT Study providing the most comprehensive analyses of neuropathology findings and costs to date, plus novel analyses of white matter hyperintensities.

04/29/2026

Day 2 is underway! Changes in gait (walking) may be an early sign of cognitive impairment or dementia, but there is limited research on this. Keith Cole, assistant professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, shared his team’s research leveraging ACT Study data to explore the relationship between gait characteristics in daily life — as measured through wearable monitors called accelerometers — and the risk of cognitive decline.