Caryn Oshiro, PhD, MS, RD is a collaborative investigator at CIHR who uses a life-course approach to studying obesity as a chronic progressive disease and its relationship to other chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. She also studies the impacts of new and effective pharmacological treatments for obesity and diabetes on patient health and lifestyle (nutrition and physical activity).

Much of Dr. Oshiro’s current research centers on maternal and child health, including research on the impact of gestational diabetes screening on adverse pregnancy outcomes, and the relationship between preconception, pregnancy, and infancy weight trajectories on childhood obesity. This work has included her role as KPHI Principal Investigator on the innovative GO MOMs study, which is using continuous glucose monitoring during pregnancy to investigate the relationship between metabolic outcomes in mothers and their offspring. Dr. Oshiro also studies the roles of racial and ethnic disparities and food insecurity in biopsychosocial health throughout the life course.

Dr. Oshiro joined CIHR in 2006 and has developed deep expertise in using electronic health record data to examine health disparities in obesity, diabetes, and cancer; screening for chronic diseases and other conditions within health care systems; understanding predictors of healthy aging in the older adult using risk prediction models; and conducting large, pragmatic, randomized trials of disease screening and prevention interventions in underserved populations. She has also led NIH- and PCORI-funded multi-site projects as site PI. These projects have ranged from large, longitudinal cohort studies to health behavior interventions. Locally, she has created collaborative research networks focused on cancer and nutritional studies with the University of Hawaii. She has worked with primary care providers at Kaiser Permanente Hawaii on efforts to understand prevalence of disease and health conditions and improve practice using electronic medical records data and research methodology.

Dr. Oshiro completed an MS in nutritional sciences and a PhD in epidemiology from the University of Hawaii; she is also a Registered Dietician and completed a clinical dietetic internship at the University of Michigan Hospitals in Ann Arbor. Her early experience as a clinical RD as part of interdisciplinary health care teams in the Michigan, Adventist Health, and Kaiser Permanente health care systems has given her invaluable clinical inpatient and outpatient expertise, as well as experience working with diverse populations. Now, as a researcher connected to the health care system, she uses both her epidemiologic and clinical experience to translate research into knowledge for use by health care providers and the broader community.