Thomas Sandora

Dr. Sandora conducts epidemiologic and clinical research. His particular areas of interest include healthcare-associated infections, infection prevention, and hand hygiene. He also conducts research in medical education.

Gastrointestinal (GI) and respiratory tract infections are common among children attending out-of-home childcare, and these infections are often transmitted to family members in the home. Dr. Sandora was the principal investigator for the Healthy Hands Healthy Families study, which was the first randomized controlled trial to demonstrate that alcohol-based hand sanitizers (as part of a multifactorial hand hygiene intervention) can reduce illness transmission in the homes of families who have children enrolled in childcare programs. He also conducted a clinical trial demonstrating that a school-based disinfection and hand hygiene intervention can reduce absenteeism from gastrointestinal illness among elementary school students.

Dr. Sandora’s research also focuses on preventing infections in the hospital. He has studied risk factors and preventive strategies for central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) in intensive care settings and other high-risk pediatric patient populations. He also studies C. difficile infection (CDI) and has investigated surveillance, risk factors, diagnostic testing strategies, and treatment of CDI in children.

Finally, Dr. Sandora holds several leadership roles in medical education and regularly serves as a mentor to residents and fellows. He is interested in educational scholarship and has studied topics such as the creation and assessment of a procedural skills curriculum for pediatric residents and the state of pediatric ID fellowship training in healthcare epidemiology.