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Subnational Analysis Of Birth Weight In Ghana Using Bayesian Spatial Regression Models, Barbara E. Mottey

Masters Theses

Child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa is reducing but the levels remain high with subnational within-country variations. Birth weight is a key predictor of child survival and monitoring birth weight outcomes, in particular, prevalence of low birth weights, is important for resource allocation to improve child survival outcomes.

Past research in sub-Saharan Africa has found that different individual-level factors are associated with birth weight including BMI of mother, sex of baby, educational level of mother, and wealth index of household. Some environmental factors are found to be associated with birth outcomes. However, past findings regarding the association of birth weight with …

Estimating Age-Specific Contraceptive Use For Spacing Of Childbirth For All Countries In Sub-Saharan Africa From 1985 To 2030 Using A Bayesian Hierarchical Time Series Model, Gregory Guranich

Masters Theses

Contraceptive usage for spacing of childbirth is an important indicator for understanding family planning practices as well as fertility transitions. Fertility transition are especially important in sub-Saharan Africa where fertility remains high in many countries. However, estimates and short-term projections are generally not available for countries in this region. We developed a Bayesian hierarchical time series model to estimate and project usage of contraceptives for spacing by 5-year age groups for all countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the years 1985-2030. Estimating country-age-year specific usage is challenging due to limited data availability. We use Bayesian hierarchical models to share information across …

Approaches To Estimation Of Haplotype Frequencies And Haplotype-Trait Associations, Xiaohong Li

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

Characterizing the genetic contributors to complex disease traits will inevitably require consideration of haplotypic phase, the specific alignment of alleles on a single homologous chromosome. In population based studies, however, phase is generally unobservable as standard genotyping techniques provide investigators only with data on unphased genotypes. Several statistical methods have been described for estimating haplotype frequencies and their association with a trait in the context of phase ambiguity. These methods are limited, however, to diploid populations in which individuals have exactly two homologous chromosomes each and are thus not suitable for more general infectious disease settings. Specifically, in the context …