Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Spatial Analysis Of Maxillary Central Incisors In Relation To The Nasopalatine Canal And Surrounding Alveolar Bone, Harnoor Dhillon

Annual Research Symposium

The use of mini-implants in orthodontics has enabled greater retraction of incisors than previously achievable. This change underscores the need to understand how incisors relate to the alveolar bone and nasopalatine canal. The varying labiolingual inclination of incisors during orthodontic treatments may influence these anatomical relationships. Our study aimed to assess the spatial relationship between maxillary central incisors and the surrounding alveolar bone and nasopalatine canal.

Implementation Of Best Practice When Collecting Blood Cultures In The Emergency Department (Ed), Parker Grossman

Annual Research Symposium

The purpose of this study is to compare blood culture contamination rates in the ED before and after educational in-services on best practice.

Impact Of Non-Surgical Periodontal Treatment On Salivary Hif-1Α In Gingivitis & Periodontitis Patients, Srijanani S

Annual Research Symposium

To estimate and compare the level of salivary HIF-1α in periodontally & systemically healthy volunteers, generalized chronic gingivitis & periodontitis patients before and after non-surgical periodontal treatment.

Detection And Relative Quantitation Of Changes In Gene Expression Of Hippo Proteins In Doxorubicin-Exposed Human Cells By Rt-Qpcr, Lillian Fleisher, Tricia Domingo, Christopher So, Stephen Lee

Annual Research Symposium

The HIPPO signaling pathway plays a key role in cell proliferation and tumor suppression. It consists of serine/threonine kinase cascades, including MST1/2, LATS1/2, YAP, and TAZ. When the HIPPO pathway is activated, gene expression is altered. Dysfunction of the activity of this cascade may contribute to cancer development and chemoresistance. FAT4 is an intracellular protein that may regulate the HIPPO signaling. The purpose of this study is to determine the relative changes of mRNA of the HIPPO pathway members and FAT4 in doxorubicin-treated and vehicle-treated in vitro cell lines.

Impact Of Non-Medical Cannabis Legalization With Market Restrictions On Health Service Use And Incident Cases Of Psychotic Disorder In Ontario, Canada, Kelly K. Anderson, Rebecca Rodrigues, Britney Le, Maliha Mamun, Suzanne Archie, Jordan Edwards, Tara Elton-Marshall, Jason Gilliland, Daniel Thomas Myran, Lena Palaniyappan, Christopher M Perlman, Jamie A Seabrook, Robin M Murray, Salimah Z Shariff

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

BACKGROUND: Cannabis is a risk factor in the onset and persistence of psychotic disorders. There is concern that non-medical cannabis legalization in Canada may have population-level impacts on psychotic disorders. We sought to examine changes in health service use and incident cases of psychotic disorder following cannabis legalization, during a period of tight restrictions on retail stores and product types.

METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional interrupted time-series analysis using linked population-based health administrative data from Ontario (Canada) from January 2014 to March 2020. We identified psychosis-related outpatient visits, emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and inpatient length of stay, as well as …

Perioperative Mortality In Low-, Middle-, And High-Income Countries: Protocol For A Multi-Level Meta-Regression Analysis, Kevin Mcintyre, Yun-Hee Choi, Ava John-Baptiste, Daniel J Lizotte, Eunice Y S Chan, Jessica Moodie, Saverio Stranges, Janet Martin

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

BACKGROUND: Surgery is an indispensable component of a functional healthcare system. To date there is limited information regarding how many people die during the perioperative period globally. This study describes a protocol for a systematic review and multilevel meta-regression to evaluate time trends regarding the odds of perioperative mortality among adults undergoing a bellwether surgical procedure while accounting for higher order clustering at the national level.

METHODS: Published studies reporting the number of perioperative deaths from bellwether surgical procedures among adults will be identified from MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL, LILACS and Global Index Medicus. The primary outcome will be the …

Understanding Social Dynamics In Toxic Conversations And Public Health Intervention Acceptance On Social Media, Ana Aleksandric

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Social media is now central to daily life, offering users a space to share content and opinions. However, these platforms also facilitate the spread of hate speech and misinformation, which can negatively impact public health. This dissertation develops methodologies to analyze social media data for insights that could inform health interventions. The research first examines user responses to toxic content, focusing on behavioral and emotional reactions, as well as group dynamics and bystander effects in toxic interactions. Another key focus is public opinion toward health interventions, particularly COVID-19 vaccination, using geolocated posts and analyzing factors such as race, ethnicity, and …

Outpatient Fall Prevention In Ambulatory Adults 65 Years Old And Over, Dorothy L. Osborne-White

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects - Archive

Background: In the United States (U.S.), falls are the leading cause of injury among adults 65 and over, resulting in 36 million falls yearly (Moreland et al., 2020). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2023), one in four older adults experiences a fall each year. Falls are the world's second most prominent cause of accidental deaths (World Health Organization [WHO], 2021). Falls are the leading cause of both fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults (Moreland et al., 2020).

Methods: A quality improvement project that included a fall bundle was implemented in a primary clinic. A …

Examining Stigma In Rural Mental Health Care Settings: A Mixed Methods Approach, Lainie Krumenacker

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

More than half of Americans will be diagnosed with a mental illness in their lifetime (CDC, 2021), yet stigma towards mental health affects both patients and providers. Although programs exist to address stigma, improve cultural competency among providers, and educate families on the importance of support, facilities are often limited on programs they provide due to allocation of resources and funds. Without a shift in treatment and programing, stigma will continue to impact patient care and outcome.

This study explored stigma among mental health providers in rural communities, while exploring potential differences in treatment among patients due to race. Mental …

The Performance Of Marginal Modeling Methods For Rare Events With Application To Opioid Overdose Mortality And Morbidity, Shawn Nigam

Theses and Dissertations--Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Opioid misuse is a nationwide epidemic, with Kentucky having one of the highest opioid overdose-related fatality rates across all US states. These rates have increased significantly over the past decade, with particularly large increases during the COVID-19 pandemic. This dissertation aims to study the behavior of these increases and the methods for the marginal modeling of count outcomes related to opioid overdose.

Opioid overdose-related fatality rates in Kentucky increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this chapter, we characterize the changes in opioid overdose fatality rates in Kentucky and identify associations between potential factors and fatality rates. County-level opioid overdose …

Patterns Into Pathways For Improving Safety Culture: Refined Latent Class Analysis Informs Tailored Decision Support For South Carolina Dss Safety Culture Improvements, Michaela Voit

Theses and Dissertations--Public Health (M.P.H. & Dr.P.H.)

The rising prevalence of exposures to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) demands a coordinated public health response, as a significant body of research details the cumulative impact of ACEs on chronic morbidities contributing to reduced life expectancy. Child welfare workers (CWW) are embedded in this public health effort, tasked with preventing and mitigating the impacts of ACEs through family and prevention services. The National Partnership for Child Safety (NPCS) may improve the wellbeing of CWWs and the effectiveness of Child Welfare (CW) services by improving the quality of safety culture within CW organizations. To inform NPCS quality improvement efforts, our project …

The Genetic Architecture Of Cervical Change During Pregnancy: From Modeling To Mechanism — Does The Cervix Mediate Maternal Risk For Spontaneous Preterm Birth?, Hope M. Wolf

Theses and Dissertations

This project leverages clinical data and biospecimens from a prospective longitudinal cohort of pregnant women to study the genetic and phenotypic relationships between cervical shortening and the duration of pregnancy. Sonographic cervical length (CL) was measured throughout pregnancy in a cohort of 5,160 Black/African American women in Detroit, Michigan. Maternal DNA samples were sequenced with a next-generation low-pass whole genome platform. The heritability of cervical change during pregnancy and its genetic correlation with gestational age at delivery (GAD) were estimated using Genome-Wide Complex Trait Analysis. These estimates suggest that cervical change is heritable (h²CL = 51%) and highly polygenic trait. …

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Cancer Survivorship And Subjective Cognitive Decline In The Us: Results From A Nationally Representative Sample, Monique J. Brown, Ally Hucek, Jingkai Wei, Loretta Anderson, Muzi Na

Faculty Publications

Cancer may be associated with objective cognitive decline. However, studies examining the link between cancer and subjective cognitive decline (SCD), which occurs earlier during cognitive trajectories, are lacking. In addition, research assessing risk factors for SCD among cancer survivors is scant. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the association between cancer and SCD in the past year, and assess the association between age of diagnosis, cancer treatment, and SCD among cancer survivors. Data were obtained from the 2021 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (N=15,447). Crude and adjusted logistic regression models, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, were used to determine the association …

Test Event Example 12/14/23, Metzalli Demolastname

Annual Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

The Dose-Response Effect Of Aerobic Exercise On Inflammation In Colon Cancer Survivors, Justin C. Brown, Stephanie L.E. Compton, Jeffrey A. Meyerhardt, Guillaume Spielmann, Shengping Yang

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Background; Physical activity after surgical resection for colon cancer is associated with significantly longer disease-free survival. Inflammation is hypothesized to mediate the association between physical activity and disease-free survival in colon cancer. Methods; In this exploratory analysis of a randomized dose-response trial, 39 colon cancer survivors who completed standard therapy were stratified by cancer stage and randomized in a 1;1;1 ratio to one of three treatment groups for 24 weeks of usual-care control, 150 min/wk of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise (low-dose), or 300 min/wk of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise (high-dose). Inflammation outcomes included high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), interleukin-6 (IL6), and soluble tumor …

Models Of Shared Care For The Management Of Psychotic Disorder After First Diagnosis In Ontario., Joshua C. Wiener, Rebecca Rodrigues, Jennifer N S Reid, Kelly K. Anderson

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

OBJECTIVE: To describe the provision of care for young people following first diagnosis of psychotic disorder.

DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study using health administrative data.

SETTING: Ontario.

PARTICIPANTS: People aged 14 to 35 years with a first diagnosis of nonaffective psychotic disorder in Ontario between 2005 and 2015 (N=39,449).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Models of care, defined by psychosis-related service contacts with primary care physicians and psychiatrists during the 2 years after first diagnosis of psychotic disorder.

RESULTS: During the 2-year follow-up period, 29% of the cohort received only primary care, 30% received only psychiatric care, and 32% received both primary and …

Dual Barriers: Examining Digital Access And Travel Burdens To Hospital Maternity Care Access In The United States, 2020, Peiyin Hung Ph.D., Marion Granger, Nansi Boghossian, Jiani Yu, Sayward Harrison, Jihong Liu Sc.D., Berry A. Campbell, Bo Cai Ph.D., Chen Liang, Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Policy Points The White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis report released in June 2022 highlighted the need to enhance equitable access to maternity care. Nationwide hospital maternity unit closures have worsened the maternal health crisis in underserved communities, leaving many birthing people with few options and with long travel times to reach essential care. Ensuring equitable access to maternity care requires addressing travel burdens to care and inadequate digital access. Our findings reveal socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in the United States face dual barriers to maternity care access, as communities located farthest away from care facilities had the …

Addressing The Analytical And Computational Challenges Using Machine Learning In Biomedical Research, Yizhuo Wang

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

In the contemporary healthcare field, professionals are confronted with an ever-growing volume of clinical data stored in electronic health records, alongside the genomic data stemming from laboratory experiments. As a response to this deluge of data, the application of machine learning (ML) techniques is gaining popularity since ML techniques have demonstrated an exceptional proficiency in processing big data and deciphering complex nonlinear patterns that are intrinsic to biomedical research.

My research leverages ML's capabilities to address the computational challenges spanning diverse areas, including adaptive clinical trial designs, survival analysis, and high-dimensional genetic data analysis. Specifically, Chapter 2 focused on the …

Examining Covid-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among The Nevada African American Population Using The Social-Ecological Model, Katelyn Faulk

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In Nevada, COVID-19 vaccines have been widely available to the general population since March 2021; however, even with the wide availability of these vaccines only 40% of the African American population in Nevada has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of May 2023. This is problematic as it has been shown that the African American population is disproportionately affected by COVID-19 with higher rates of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths when compared to other races or ethnicities. Through the literature, it has also been well documented that African Americans may experience hesitancy toward these vaccinations for a multitude of reasons including …

Access To A Regular Primary Care Physician Among Young People With Early Psychosis In Ontario, Canada, Rebecca Rodrigues, Jennifer N S Reid, Joshua C. Wiener, Suzanne Archie, Richard G Booth, Chiachen Cheng, Arlene G Macdougall, Lena Palaniyappan, Bridget L Ryan, Aristotle Voineskos, Paul Kurdyak, Saadia Hameed Jan, Kelly K. Anderson

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

AIM: Access to a primary care physician in early psychosis facilitates help-seeking and engagement with psychiatric treatment. We examined access to a regular primary care physician in people with early psychosis, compared to the general population, and explored factors associated with access.

METHODS: Using linked health administrative data from Ontario (Canada), we identified people aged 14-35 years with a first diagnosis of nonaffective psychotic disorder (n = 39 449; 2005-2015). We matched cases to four randomly selected general population controls based on age, sex, neighbourhood, and index date (n = 157 796). We used modified Poisson regression to estimate prevalence …

Editorial: The Public Health Scholars As The Health Leaders, Al Asyary, Meita Veruswati, Putri Bungsu Machmud, Indri Hapsari Susilowati

Kesmas

1. Achmadi UF. Kesehatan Masyarakat: Teori dan Aplikasi. Jakarta: Rajawali Pers; 2014.

2. Asyary A. Editorial. Kesmas. 2023; 18 (Special Issue 1): 1-3. DOI: 10.21109/kesmas.v18isp1.7201

3. Badan Kebijakan Pembangunan Kesehatan. Pembangunan Kesehatan di Indonesia melalui Kesinambungan Finansial Jaminan Kesehatan serta Meningkatkan Kualitas Layanan dengan Integrasi Data. Jakarta: Kementerian Kesehatan Republik Indonesia; 2023.

Data Quality Checks: Implementation With Popular Data Collection Crowdsourcing Platforms, James Down, Gregory Balkcom, Kristine Duncan, Ngan (An) Truong, Andrew Lewis

Symposium of Student Scholars

The utilization of online crowdsourcing platforms for data collection has increased over the past two decades in the field of public health due to the ease of use, the cost-saving benefits, the speed of the data collection process, and the accessibility of a potentially true representative population. Although these platforms offer many advantages to researchers, significant drawbacks exist, such as poor data quality, that threaten the reliability and validity of the study. Previous studies have examined data quality concerns, but differences in results arise due to variations in study designs, disciplinary contexts, and the platforms being investigated. Therefore, this study …

Who Sleeps Well In Canada? The Social Determinants Of Sleep Health Among Middle-Aged And Older Adults In The Canadian Longitudinal Study On Aging., Rebecca Rodrigues, Amy Jing, Kelly K. Anderson, Rea Alonzo, Piotr Wilk, Graham J Reid, Jason Gilliland, Guangyong Zou, Kathryn Nicholson, Giuseppe Guaiana, Saverio Stranges

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

OBJECTIVES: Sleep health inequities likely contribute to disparities in health outcomes. Our objective was to identify social determinants of sleep health among middle-aged/older adults in Canada, where prior evidence is limited.

METHODS: We analyzed cross-sectional data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, a survey of over 30,000 community-dwelling adults aged 45-85years. Self-reported measures included sleep duration, sleep satisfaction, and sleep efficiency. We explored associations between sleep measures and social determinants of health. We used modified Poisson regression to estimate prevalence ratios for sleep satisfaction and sleep efficiency, and linear regression for sleep duration. Estimates were adjusted for all social, …

Geographic Differences In The Magnitude Of Black-White Disparities In Having Obesity, Steven A. Cohen, Monique J. Brown, Furong Xu, Caitlin C. Nash, Mary L. Greaney

Faculty Publications

Background

Obesity disparities in the United States are well documented, but the limited body of research suggests that geographic factors may alter the magnitude of these disparities. A growing body of evidence has identified a “rural mortality penalty” where morbidity and mortality rates are higher in rural than urban areas, even after controlling for other factors. Black-White differences in health and mortality are more pronounced in rural areas than in urban areas.

Objective

Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore how rural-urban status and region moderate Black-White health disparities in obesity.

Methods

Data were abstracted from the 2012 …

All-Cause And Opioid-Related Mortality Compared Between Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury And The Us General Population, Jaden Whitehead, Beatrice Ugiliweneza

The Cardinal Edge

Individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) are susceptible to the misuse of opioids due to the introduction of these substances for pain management. There are very few studies examining the relationship between unintentional deaths caused by opioid usage following spinal cord injury. The objective of this study was to evaluate the trend of opioid-related mortality of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) over the years and compare these findings to the mortality rates due to opioid misuse in the general population. In this study, we used data provided by the National Spinal Cord Injury Model Systems (NSCIMS) for SCI 1999-2016 …

Sugar-Sweetened Beverages And Artificially Sweetened Beverages Consumption And The Risk Of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver (Nafld) And Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis (Nash), Tung Sung Tseng, Wei Ting Lin, Peng Sheng Ting, Chiung Kuei Huang, Po Hung Chen, Gabrielle V. Gonzalez, Hui Yi Lin

School of Public Health Faculty Publications

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) are fast becoming the most common chronic liver disease and are often preventable with healthy dietary habits and weight management. Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption is associated with obesity and NAFLD. However, the impact of different types of SSBs, including artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs), is not clear after controlling for total sugar intake and total caloric intake. The aim of this study was to examine the association between the consumption of different SSBs and the risk of NAFLD and NASH in US adults. The representativeness of 3739 US adults aged ≥20 years …

History And Current Status Of Mediterranean Spotted Fever (Msf) In The Crimean Peninsula And Neighboring Regions Along The Black Sea Coast, Muniver T. Gafarova, Marina E. Eremeeva

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Mediterranean spotted fever (MSF) is a tick-borne rickettsiosis caused by Rickettsia conorii subspecies conorii and transmitted to humans by Rhipicephalus sanguineus ticks. The disease was first discovered in Tunisia in 1910 and was subsequently reported from other Mediterranean countries. The first cases of MSF in the former Soviet Union were detected in 1936 on the Crimean Peninsula. This review summarizes the historic information and main features of MSF in that region and contemporary surveillance and control efforts for this rickettsiosis. Current data pertinent to the epidemiology of the disease, circulation of the ticks and distribution of animal hosts are discussed …

The Public Health Impact Of Paxlovid Covid-19 Treatment In The United States, Yuan Bai, Zhanwei Du, Lin Wang, Eric H. Y. Lau, Isaac Fung, Petter Holme, Ben Cowling, Alison Galvani, Robert Krug, Lauren Ancel Meyers

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

The antiviral drug Paxlovid has been shown to rapidly reduce viral load. Coupled with vaccination, timely administration of safe and effective antivirals could provide a path towards managing COVID-19 without restrictive non-pharmaceutical measures. Here, we estimate the population-level impacts of expanding treatment with Paxlovid in the US using a multi-scale mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission that incorporates the within-host viral load dynamics of the Omicron variant. We find that, under a low transmission scenario (Re∼1.2) treating 20% of symptomatic cases would be life and cost saving, leading to an estimated 0.26 (95% CrI: 0.03, 0.59) million hospitalizations averted, 30.61 (95% …

Design, Analysis, And Interpretation Of Treatment Response Heterogeneity In Personalized Nutrition And Obesity Treatment Research, Roger S. Zoh, Bridget H. Esteves, Xiaoxin Yu, Amanda J. Fairchild, Ana I. Vazquez, Andrew G. Chapple, Andrew W. Brown, Brandon George, Derek Gordon, Douglas Landsittel, Gary L. Gadbury, Greg Pavela, Gustavo De Los Campos, Luis M. Mestre, David B. Allison

School of Public Health Faculty Publications

It is increasingly assumed that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to dietary recommendations for the management and treatment of chronic diseases such as obesity. This phenomenon that not all individuals respond uniformly to a given treatment has become an area of research interest given the rise of personalized and precision medicine. To conduct, interpret, and disseminate this research rigorously and with scientific accuracy, however, requires an understanding of treatment response heterogeneity. Here, we define treatment response heterogeneity as it relates to clinical trials, provide statistical guidance for measuring treatment response heterogeneity, and highlight study designs that can quantify treatment response …