Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Nonparametric Collective Spectral Density Estimation With An Application To Clustering The Brain Signals, Mehdi Maadooliat, Ying Sun, Tianbo Chen

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

In this paper, we develop a method for the simultaneous estimation of spectral density functions (SDFs) for a collection of stationary time series that share some common features. Due to the similarities among the SDFs, the log‐SDF can be represented using a common set of basis functions. The basis shared by the collection of the log‐SDFs is estimated as a low‐dimensional manifold of a large space spanned by a prespecified rich basis. A collective estimation approach pools information and borrows strength across the SDFs to achieve better estimation efficiency. Moreover, each estimated spectral density has a concise representation using the …

Power In Pairs: Assessing The Statistical Value Of Paired Samples In Tests For Differential Expression, John R. Stevens, Jennifer S. Herrick, Roger K. Wolff, Martha L. Slattery

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Background: When genomics researchers design a high-throughput study to test for differential expression, some biological systems and research questions provide opportunities to use paired samples from subjects, and researchers can plan for a certain proportion of subjects to have paired samples. We consider the effect of this paired samples proportion on the statistical power of the study, using characteristics of both count (RNA-Seq) and continuous (microarray) expression data from a colorectal cancer study.

Results: We demonstrate that a higher proportion of subjects with paired samples yields higher statistical power, for various total numbers of samples, and for various strengths of …

Earthquake Exposures And Mental Health Outcomes In Children And Adolescents From Phulpingdanda Village, Nepal: A Cross-Sectional Study, Jessica S. Schwind, Clara B. Formby, Susan L. Santangelo, Stephanie A. Norman, Rebecca Brown, Rebecca Hoffman Frances, Elisabeth Koss, Dibesh Karmacharya

Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Environmental Health Sciences Faculty Publications

Background

Mental health issues can reach epidemic proportions in developed countries after natural disasters, but research is needed to better understand the impact on children and adolescents in developing nations.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was performed to examine the relationship between earthquake exposures and depression, PTSD, and resilience among children and adolescents in Phulpingdanda village in Nepal, 1 year after the 2015 earthquakes, using the Depression Self-Rating Scale for Children, Child PTSD Symptom Scale, and the Child and Youth Resilience Measure, respectively. To quantify exposure, a basic demographic and household questionnaire, including an earthquake exposure assessment tool for children and …

Dichotomous Scoring Of Tdp-43 Proteinopathy From Specific Brain Regions In 27 Academic Research Centers: Associations With Alzheimer's Disease And Cerebrovascular Disease Pathologies, Yuriko Katsumata, David W. Fardo, Walter A. Kukull, Peter T. Nelson

Biostatistics Faculty Publications

TAR-DNA binding protein 43 (TDP-43) proteinopathy is a common brain pathology in elderly persons, but much remains to be learned about this high-morbidity condition. Published stage-based systems for operationalizing disease severity rely on the involvement (presence/absence) of pathology in specific anatomic regions. To examine the comorbidities associated with TDP-43 pathology in aged individuals, we studied data from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) Neuropathology Data Set. Data were analyzed from 929 included subjects with available TDP-43 pathology information, sourced from 27 different American Alzheimer’s Disease Centers (ADCs). Cases with relatively unusual diseases including autopsy-proven frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD-TDP or FTLD-tau) …

Large-Scale Genome-Wide Meta-Analysis Of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Suggests Shared Genetic Architecture For Different Diagnosis Criteria, Felix Day, Tugce Karaderi, Michelle R. Jones, Cindy Meun, Chunyan He, Alex Drong, Peter Kraft, Nan Lin, Hongyan Huang, Linda Broer, Reedik Magi, Richa Saxena, Triin Laisk, Margrit Urbanek, M. Geoffrey Hayes, Gudmar Thorleifsson, Juan Fernandez-Tajes, Anubha Mahajan, Benjamin H. Mullin, Bronwyn G. A. Stuckey, Timothy D. Spector, Scott G. Wilson, Mark O. Goodarzi, Lea Davis, Barbara Obermayer-Pietsch, André G. Uitterlinden, Verneri Anttila, Benjamin M. Neale, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Bart Fauser

Internal Medicine Faculty Publications

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a disorder characterized by hyperandrogenism, ovulatory dysfunction and polycystic ovarian morphology. Affected women frequently have metabolic disturbances including insulin resistance and dysregulation of glucose homeostasis. PCOS is diagnosed with two different sets of diagnostic criteria, resulting in a phenotypic spectrum of PCOS cases. The genetic similarities between cases diagnosed based on the two criteria have been largely unknown. Previous studies in Chinese and European subjects have identified 16 loci associated with risk of PCOS. We report a fixed-effect, inverse-weighted-variance meta-analysis from 10,074 PCOS cases and 103,164 controls of European ancestry and characterisation of PCOS related …

Positive Association Between Dietary Inflammatory Index And The Risk Of Osteoporosis: Results From The Koges_Health Examinee (Hexa) Cohort Study, Hye Sun Kim, Cheongmin Sohn, Minji Kwon, Woori Na, Nitin Shivappa, James R. Hébert, Mi Kyung Kim

Faculty Publications

Previous studies have found that diet’s inflammatory potential is related to various diseases. However, little is known about its relationship with osteoporosis. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the dietary inflammatory index (DII®) and osteoporosis risk in a large-scale prospective cohort study in Korea. This prospective cohort study included 159,846 participants (men 57,740; women 102,106) from South Korea with a mean follow-up of 7.9 years. The DII was calculated through a validated semi-quantitative FFQ (SQFFQ), and information on osteoporosis was self-reported by the participants. Analyses were performed by using a multivariable Cox proportional hazard model. …

Serum Nutrient Levels And Aging Effects On Periodontitis, Jeffrey L Ebersole, Joshua Lambert, Heather Bush, Pinar Emecen Huja, Arpita Basu

Biostatistics Faculty Publications

Periodontal disease damages tissues as a result of dysregulated host responses against the chronic bacterial biofilm insult and approximately 50% of US adults > 30 years old exhibit periodontitis. The association of five blood nutrients and periodontitis were evaluated due to our previous findings regarding a potential protective effect for these nutrients in periodontal disease derived from the US population sampled as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999–2004). Data from over 15,000 subjects was analyzed for blood levels of cis-β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, folate, vitamin D, and vitamin E, linked with analysis of the presence and severity of periodontitis. …

Multiple Aneurysms Anatomy Challenge 2018 (Match): Phase I: Segmentation, Philipp Berg, Samuel Voß, Sylvia Saalfeld, Gábor Janiga, Aslak W. Bergersen, Kristian Valen-Sendstad, Jan Bruening, Leonid Goubergrits, Andreas Spuler, Nicole M. Cancelliere, David A. Steinman, Vitor M. Pereira, Tin Lok Chiu, Anderson Chun On Tsang, Bong Jae Chung, Juan R. Cebral, Salvatore Cito, Jordi Pallarès, Gabriele Copelli, Benjamin Csippa, György Paál, Soichiro Fujimura, Hiroyuki Takao, Simona Hodis, Georg Hille, Christof Karmonik, Saba Elias, Kerstin Kellermann, Muhammad Owais Khan, Alison L. Marsden

Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose: Advanced morphology analysis and image-based hemodynamic simulations are increasingly used to assess the rupture risk of intracranial aneurysms (IAs). However, the accuracy of those results strongly depends on the quality of the vessel wall segmentation. Methods: To evaluate state-of-the-art segmentation approaches, the Multiple Aneurysms AnaTomy CHallenge (MATCH) was announced. Participants carried out segmentation in three anonymized 3D DSA datasets (left and right anterior, posterior circulation) of a patient harboring five IAs. Qualitative and quantitative inter-group comparisons were carried out with respect to aneurysm volumes and ostia. Further, over- and undersegmentation were evaluated based on highly resolved 2D images. Finally, …

The Principal Problem With Principal Components Regression, Heidi Margaret Artigue, Heidi Margaret Artigue

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Principal components regression (PCR) reduces a large number of explanatory variables down to a small number of principal components. PCR is thought to be more useful, the more numerous the potential explanatory variables. The reality is that a large number of candidate explanatory variables does not make PCR more valuable; instead, it magnifies the failings of PCR.

Subject Level Clustering Using A Negative Binomial Model For Small Transcriptomic Studies., Qian Li, Janelle R. Noel-Macdonnell, Devin C. Koestler, Ellen L. Goode, Brooke L. Fridley

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Unsupervised clustering represents one of the most widely applied methods in analysis of high-throughput 'omics data. A variety of unsupervised model-based or parametric clustering methods and non-parametric clustering methods have been proposed for RNA-seq count data, most of which perform well for large samples, e.g. N ≥ 500. A common issue when analyzing limited samples of RNA-seq count data is that the data follows an over-dispersed distribution, and thus a Negative Binomial likelihood model is often used. Thus, we have developed a Negative Binomial model-based (NBMB) clustering approach for application to RNA-seq studies.

RESULTS: We have developed a Negative …

Application Of Bradford’S Law Of Scattering On Research Publication In Astronomy & Astrophysics Of India, Satish Kumar, Senthilkumar R.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The present study is focused on examining the application of Bradford’s law of scattering on research articles published in the field of Astronomy & Astrophysics by Indian scientist during 1988-2017. The bibliographic data was retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) bibliographic data base for different period of time. Total 18,877 journal’s article have been published by Indian scientist in the field of Astronomy & Astrophysics during 1988-2017 which was further retrieved and analyzed separately for different blocks of 10 years as well as for 30 years consolidated too. The core journal of the field was identified. The Bradford law of …

A Logitudinal Feature Selection Method Identifies Relevant Genes To Distinguish Complicated Injury And Uncomplicated Injury Over Time, Suyan Tian, Chi Wang, Howard H. Chang

Biostatistics Faculty Publications

Background: Feature selection and gene set analysis are of increasing interest in the field of bioinformatics. While these two approaches have been developed for different purposes, we describe how some gene set analysis methods can be utilized to conduct feature selection.

Methods: We adopted a gene set analysis method, the significance analysis of microarray gene set reduction (SAMGSR) algorithm, to carry out feature selection for longitudinal gene expression data.

Results: Using a real-world application and simulated data, it is demonstrated that the proposed SAMGSR extension outperforms other relevant methods. In this study, we illustrate that a gene’s expression profiles over …

Instances Of Influenza In The United States Visualized, Parth Patel

Publications and Research

The Tycho Project collects large data sets related to healthcare and in particular, instances and geographical information of diseases. We look at the instance counts and locations of Influenza from 1919-1951 across the United States. We hope to find seasonal and geographical insight to the spread of the disease.

Almost Periodic Functions In Quantum Calculus, Martin Bohner, Jaqueline Godoy Mesquita

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this article, we introduce the concepts of Bochner and Bohr almost periodic functions in quantum calculus and show that both concepts are equivalent. Also, we present a correspondence between almost periodic functions defined in quantum calculus and N₀, proving several important properties for this class of functions. We investigate the existence of almost periodic solutions of linear and nonlinear q-difference equations. Finally, we provide some examples of almost periodic functions in quantum calculus.

International Risk Sharing In Overlapping Generations Models, James Staveley-O'Carroll, Olena M. Staveley-O'Carroll

Economics Department Working Papers

We present a solution to the Backus-Smith puzzle that, instead of relying on extreme parameter values or complex modeling assumptions, simply switches the framework from infinitely lived agents to overlapping generations. Young agents face non-diversifiable wage risk that leads to a low degree of risk sharing within each country. Subsequently, international price movements are not sufficient to achieve the high consumption-real exchange rate correlation produced in standard infinitely lived agent DSGE models.

Relationships Between Social Network Characteristics, Alcohol Use, And Alcohol-Related Consequences In A Large Network Of First-Year College Students: How Do Peer Drinking Norms Fit In?, Graham T. Diguiseppi, Matthew K. Meisel, Sara G. Balestrieri, Miles Q. Ott, Melissa A. Clark, Nancy P. Barnett

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

A burgeoning area of research is using social network analysis to investigate college students' substance use behaviors. However, little research has incorporated students' perceived peer drinking norms into these analyses. The present study investigated the association between social network characteristics, alcohol use, and alcohol-related consequences among first-year college students (N 1,342; 81% of the first-year class) at one university. The moderating role of descriptive norms was also examined. Network characteristics and descriptive norms were derived from participants' nominations of up to 10 other students who were important to them; individual network characteristics included popularity (indegree), network expansiveness (outdegree), relationship reciprocity, …

Text Analytics Approach To Extract Course Improvement Suggestions From Students’ Feedback, Swapna Gottipati, Venky Shankararaman, Jeff Rongsheng Lin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In academic institutions, it is normal practice that at the end of each term, students are required to complete a questionnaire that is designed to gather students’ perceptions of the instructor and their learning experience in the course. Students’ feedback includes numerical answers to Likert scale questions and textual comments to open-ended questions. Within the textual comments given by the students are embedded suggestions. A suggestion can be explicit or implicit. Any suggestion provides useful pointers on how the instructor can further enhance the student learning experience. However, it is tedious to manually go through all the qualitative comments and …

Role Of Misclassification Estimates In Estimating Disease Prevalence And A Non-Linear Approach To Study Synchrony Using Heart Rate Variability In Chickens, Dola Pathak

Department of Statistics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Work

Infectious disease assays can be imperfect. When estimating disease prevalence, these imperfections are accounted for by incorporating assay sensitivity and specificity into point and variance estimates. Unfortunately, these accuracy measures are often treated as fixed constants, rather than acknowledging that they are estimates from an assay validation process. The purpose of this study is to show the detrimental effect of not taking into account this sampling variability when samples are obtained through group testing (aka, pooled testing). We show that confidence interval coverage can dramatically decline as the sample size increases for the main sample of interest. As a remedy …

Concentrations Of Criteria Pollutants In The Contiguous U.S., 1979 – 2015: Role Of Model Parsimony In Integrated Empirical Geographic Regression, Sun-Young Kim, Matthew Bechle, Steve Hankey, Elizabeth (Lianne) A. Sheppard, Adam A. Szpiro, Julian D. Marshall

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

BACKGROUND: National- or regional-scale prediction models that estimate individual-level air pollution concentrations commonly include hundreds of geographic variables. However, these many variables may not be necessary and parsimonious approach including small numbers of variables may achieve sufficient prediction ability. This parsimonious approach can also be applied to most criteria pollutants. This approach will be powerful when generating publicly available datasets of model predictions that support research in environmental health and other fields. OBJECTIVES: We aim to (1) build annual-average integrated empirical geographic (IEG) regression models for the contiguous U.S. for six criteria pollutants, for all years with regulatory monitoring data …

Inpatient And Outpatient Infection As A Trigger Of Cardiovascular Disease: The Aric Study, Logan Cowan, Pamela L. Lutsey, James S. Pankow, Kunihiro Matsushita, Junichi Ishigami, Kamakshi Lakshminarayan

Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Environmental Health Sciences Faculty Publications

Background

Acute infections are known cardiovascular disease (CVD) triggers, but little is known regarding how CVD risk varies following inpatient versus outpatient infections. We hypothesized that in‐ and outpatient infections are associated with CVD risk and that the association is stronger for inpatient infections.

Methods and Results

Coronary heart disease (CHD) and ischemic stroke cases were identified and adjudicated in the ARIC (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study). Hospital discharge diagnosis codes and Medicare claims data were used to identify infections diagnosed in in‐ and outpatient settings. A case‐crossover design and conditional logistic regression were used to compare in‐ and outpatient …

An Introduction To Psychological Statistics, Garett C. Foster, David Lane, David Scott, Mikki Hebl, Rudy Guerra, Dan Osherson, Heidi Zimmer

Open Educational Resources Collection

This work has been superseded by Introduction to Statistics in the Psychological Sciences available from https://irl.umsl.edu/oer/25/.

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We are constantly bombarded by information, and finding a way to filter that information in an objective way is crucial to surviving this onslaught with your sanity intact. This is what statistics, and logic we use in it, enables us to do. Through the lens of statistics, we learn to find the signal hidden in the noise when it is there and to know when an apparent trend or pattern is really just randomness. The study of statistics involves math and relies …

Blood Transfusions In Preterm Infants: Changes On Perfusion Index And Intermittent Hypoxemia, Katrina T. Ibonia, Henrietta S. Bada, Philip M. Westgate, Enrique Gomez Pomar, Prasad Bhandary, Abhijit R. Patwardhan, Elie G. Abu Jawdeh

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND

Red blood cell (RBC) transfusion decreases intermittent hypoxemia (IH) events beyond the first week of life. This benefit may be related to improved perfusion to the respiratory control network. Perfusion index (PI) is a perfusion measure provided by the pulse oximeter. We hypothesized that the benefit in IH after RBC transfusion is associated with an increase in PI. In addition, we assessed the value of PI and clinical measures in predicting the effect of RBC transfusion on IH.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS

We prospectively enrolled infants less than 30 weeks' gestation age. PI and oxygen saturation (SpO₂) …

Safety, Tolerability, And Pharmacokinetics Of Long-Acting Injectable Cabotegravir In Low-Risk Hiv-Uninfected Individuals: Hptn 077, A Phase 2a Randomized Controlled Trial., Raphael J Landovitz, Sue Li, Beatriz Grinsztejn, Halima Dawood, Albert Y Liu, Manya Magnus, Mina C Hosseinipour, Ravindre Panchia, Leslie Cottle, Gordon Chau, Paul Richardson, Mark A Marzinke, Craig W Hendrix, Susan H Eshleman, Yinfeng Zhang, Elizabeth Tolley, Jeremy Sugarman, Ryan Kofron, Adeola Adeyeye, David Burns, Alex R Rinehart, David Margolis, William R Spreen, Myron S Cohen, Marybeth Mccauley, Joseph J Eron

Epidemiology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Cabotegravir (CAB) is a novel strand-transfer integrase inhibitor being developed for HIV treatment and prevention. CAB is formulated both as an immediate-release oral tablet for daily administration and as a long-acting injectable suspension (long-acting CAB [CAB LA]) for intramuscular (IM) administration, which delivers prolonged plasma exposure to the drug after IM injection. HIV Prevention Trials Network study 077 (HPTN 077) evaluated the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of CAB LA in HIV-uninfected males and females at 8 sites in Brazil, Malawi, South Africa, and the United States.

METHODS AND FINDINGS: HPTN 077 was a double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2a trial. Healthy …

Trends In Obesity And Multimorbidity In Canada., Michael Lebenbaum, Gregory S Zaric, Amardeep Thind, Sisira Sarma

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

Very few studies have examined trends in multimorbidity over time and even fewer have examined trends over time across different body mass index (BMI) groups. Given a general decline in death rates but increased cardiovascular risk factors among individuals with obesity, the trend in the association between obesity and multimorbidity is hypothesized to be increasing over time. The data for our study came from the 1996-97 National Population Health Survey and the 2005 and 2012-13 Canadian Community Health Surveys (N = 277,366 across all 3 surveys). We examined trends in the association between BMI groups and multimorbidity using a logistic …

Development And Internal Validation Of An Aneurysm Rupture Probability Model Based On Patient Characteristics And Aneurysm Location, Morphology, And Hemodynamics, Felicitas J. Detmer, Bong Jae Chung, Fernando Mut, Martin Slawski, Farid Hamzei-Sichani, Christopher Putman, Carlos Jiménez, Juan R. Cebral

Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose: Unruptured cerebral aneurysms pose a dilemma for physicians who need to weigh the risk of a devastating subarachnoid hemorrhage against the risk of surgery or endovascular treatment and their complications when deciding on a treatment strategy. A prediction model could potentially support such treatment decisions. The aim of this study was to develop and internally validate a model for aneurysm rupture based on hemodynamic and geometric parameters, aneurysm location, and patient gender and age. Methods: Cross-sectional data from 1061 patients were used for image-based computational fluid dynamics and shape characterization of 1631 aneurysms for training an aneurysm rupture probability …

Hemodynamic Characteristics Of Stable And Unstable Vertebrobasilar Dolichoectatic And Fusiform Aneurysms, Waleed Brinjikji, Bong Jae Chung, Ding Yong-Hong, John T. Wald, Fernando Mut, Ramanathan Kadirvel, David F. Kallmes, Aymeric Rouchaud, Giuseppe Lanzino, Juan R. Cebral

Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Background and purpose Vertebrobasilar dolichoectatic and fusiform aneurysms (VBDAs) are known to have a poor natural history, with high rates of growth, rupture, and stroke. The purpose of this study was to identify hemodynamic characteristics that differ between VBDAs associated with growth, rupture, and stroke. Materials and methods VBDAs with CT angiography or MR angiography followed longitudinally without treatment were studied. Unstable aneurysms were defined as those that grew or ruptured during follow-up. Aneurysms associated with stroke were defined as those associated with posterior circulation infarct at follow-up. Baseline data, including demographics, comorbidities, and aneurysm morphology and size were collected. …

Statistical Investigation Of Road And Railway Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety, Amirfarrokh Iranitalab

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Transportation of hazardous materials (hazmat) in the United States (U.S.) constituted 22.8% of the total tonnage transported in 2012 with an estimated value of more than 2.3 billion dollars. As such, hazmat transportation is a significant economic activity in the U.S. However, hazmat transportation exposes people and environment to the infrequent but potentially severe consequences of incidents resulting in hazmat release. Trucks and trains carried 63.7% of the hazmat in the U.S. in 2012 and are the major foci of this dissertation. The main research objectives were 1) identification and quantification of the effects of different factors on occurrence and …

Vpsearch: Achieving Verifiability For Privacy-Preserving Multi-Keyword Search Over Encrypted Cloud Data, Zhiguo Wan, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Although cloud computing offers elastic computation and storage resources, it poses challenges on verifiability of computations and data privacy. In this work we investigate verifiability for privacy-preserving multi-keyword search over outsourced documents. As the cloud server may return incorrect results due to system faults or incentive to reduce computation cost, it is critical to offer verifiability of search results and privacy protection for outsourced data at the same time. To fulfill these requirements, we design aVerifiablePrivacy-preserving keywordSearch scheme, called VPSearch, by integrating an adapted homomorphic MAC technique with a privacy-preserving multi-keyword search scheme. The proposed scheme enables the client to …

U.S. College Students’ Social Network Characteristics And Perceived Social Exclusion: A Comparison Between Drinkers And Nondrinkers Based On Pastmonth Alcohol Use, Sara G. Balestrieri, Graham T. Diguiseppi, Matthew Meisel, Melissa A. Clark, Miles Q. Ott, Nancy P. Barnett

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

There is a general perception on college campuses that alcohol use is normative. However, nondrinking students account for 40% of the U.S. college population. With much of the literature focusing on intervening among drinkers, there has been less of a focus on understanding the nondrinker college experience. The current study has two aims: to describe the social network differences between nondrinkers and drinkers in a college setting, and to assess perceived social exclusion among nondrinkers. METHOD:First-year U.S. college students (n = 1,342; 55.3% female; 47.7% non-Hispanic White) were participants in a larger study examining a social network of one college …

Smartphone-Based Prenatal Education For Parents With Preterm Birth Risk Factors, U. Olivia Kim, K. Barnekow, Sheikh Iqbal Ahamed, S. Dreier, C. Jones, M. Taylor, Md Kamrul Hasan, M. A. Basir

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Objective

To develop an educational mobile application (app) for expectant parents diagnosed with risk factors for premature birth.

Methods

Parent and medical advisory panels delineated the vision for the app. The app helps prepare for preterm birth. For pilot testing, obstetricians offered the app between 18–22 weeks gestational age to English speaking parents with risk factors for preterm birth. After 4 weeks of use, each participant completed a questionnaire. The software tracked topics accessed and duration of use.

Results

For pilot testing, 31 participants were recruited and 28 completed the questionnaire. After app utilization, participants reported heightened awareness of preterm …