LAUSR

: Pharmacoepidemiology, the study of medication effects on populations, is essential for advancing the psychiatric care of children and adolescents. Unique physiological and pharmacokinetic considerations, alongside tolerability and safety issues, make child and adolescent psychopharmacology a distinct fi eld in need of the evidence-based framework that pharmacoepidemiology strives to provide for clinical practice (Bobo et al., 2013). The integration of arti fi cial intelligence and large datasets heralds a revolutionary era in pharmacoepidemiology and our fi eld in general, with the promise of exponential growth in safe, effective treatments for youth. This issue underscores the signi fi cance of pharmacoepidemiology and our journal ’ s increasing focus on this critical area. Ray and colleagues present fi ndings from a national cohort study examining 9 years of Medicaid data with the overall goal of estimating the incidence of neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) and identi fi cation of potential risk factors. Patients had 8.9 presentations of NMS per 100,000 person-years of antipsychotic use. An age of 18 – 24 years, psychotic illnesses, neurodevelopmental disorders, antipsychotic dose greater than 200 mg equivalents of chlorpromazine, and fi rst-generation antipsychotic use independently predicted increased incidence of NMS. The presence of at least four of these characteristics was associated with more than a 100 times greater incidence compared to clinical situations in which none of these factors were present. Risperidone, aripiprazole, and quetiapine were the most commonly prescribed antipsychotics in the study sample and notably, ziprasidone had an increased incidence of NMS compared with other drugs (Ray et al., 2024a). This study sets the stage for enhanced prevention and early detection of