Safalta Khadka

About
Safalta Khadka, PhD, MS, is a post-doctoral fellow at Rutgers, Center for Health Outcomes, Policy, and Economics (HOPE) and Jhonson & Jhonson- IM. She received her PhD in Health Services and Outcomes Research from West Virginia University, School of Pharmacy in 2025. She holds a Master of Science in Health Outcomes and Socioeconomic Sciences from the University of Toledo (2021) and a Bachelor of Pharmacy from Tribhuvan University in Nepal (2017). She also completed a summer fellowship at the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health (CEVR) at Tufts Medical Center (2023). Her research focuses on improving cancer care and pain management using real-world evidence. Her dissertation examined the prevalence, risk factors, cardiovascular outcomes, and economic burden of potentially inappropriate opioid prescriptions among elderly cancer patients using SEER-Medicare data. Moreover, her work applies advanced statistical and epidemiologic methods including generalized linear models, survival analysis, and causal inference techniques to large healthcare databases to evaluate treatment outcomes and healthcare utilization in oncology and chronic pain populations. Dr. Khadka has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications on topics such as opioid-related polysubstance use, tobacco cessation in cancer patients, food insecurity, and disparities in cancer care, with her work appearing in journals such as Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Injury Epidemiology, and American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. She has presented nationally and internationally at ISPOR, ICPE, and other leading conferences, and her research has been recognized with awards including the Graduate Student Research Award (2025) and the Dr. S. Suresh Madhavan Award (2024). She has also held leadership positions in the International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR), serving as President of the WVU student chapter and as a member of the ISPOR Student Network Event Planning Committee.