Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Sars-Cov-2 Transmission In Alberta, British Columbia, And Ontario, Canada, December 25, 2019, To December 1, 2020, Isaac Chun-Hai Fung, Yuen Wai Hung, Sylvia Ofori, Kamalich Muniz-Rodriguez, Po-Ying Lai, Gerardo Chowell

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Objective:

This study aimed to investigate coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemiology in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario, Canada.

Methods:

Using data through December 1, 2020, we estimated time-varying reproduction number, R t , using EpiEstim package in R, and calculated incidence rate ratios (IRR) across the 3 provinces.

Results:

In Ontario, 76% (92 745/121 745) of cases were in Toronto, Peel, York, Ottawa, and Durham; in Alberta, 82% (49 878/61 169) in Calgary and Edmonton; in British Columbia, 90% (31 142/34 699) in Fraser and Vancouver Coastal. Across 3 provinces, R t dropped to ≤ 1 after April. …

Lag Effects Of Ozone, Pm2.5, And Meteorological Factors On Covid-19 New Cases At The Disease Epicenter In Queens, New York, Atin Adhikari, Jingjing Yin

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

The influences of environmental factors on COVID-19 may not be immediate and could be lagged for days to weeks. This study investigated the choice of lag days for calculating cumulative lag effects of ozone, PM2.5, and five meteorological factors (wind speed, temperature, relative humidity, absolute humidity, and cloud percentages) on COVID-19 new cases at the epicenter of Queens County, New York, before the governor’s executive order on wearing of masks in public places (1 March to 11 April 2020). Daily data for selected air pollutants and meteorological factors were collected from the US EPA Air Quality System, weather observation station …

Predictive Modeling And Estimation Of The Doubling Time Of Confirmed Cases Of Covid-19 In Niger, Ibrahim Sidi Zakari, Hadiza Galadima

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Modeling is increasingly used to assess scenarios and make projections on the future course of new coronavirus disease. This allows for better planning of care as well as a relaxation or tightening of the restrictive measures decreed by the government and the health authorities. The data analyzed in this study covers the period from March 19 to June 05, 2020 and allowed predictions of new cases of COVID-19 based on a growth model with a growth rate that changes linearly over time. In addition, we calculated and predicted the doubling time of the number of positive cases in each region …

Analyzing Student Experience On Group Work With The Application Of Different Group Allocation Approaches, An Yee Tan

Management and HR

Working as a group can be as challenging as working by oneself. Common issues like ineffective group work, unequal work contribution, and poor communication are believed to be the reasons why many students preferred to work individually. The purpose of this study is to understand if there is a disparity in student experience on group work by implementing different methods of group formation, which are, intentional group formation and random assignment. Topics around team well-being, team communication, and team effectiveness are the main focus of this study. The second emphasis of this study is students’ opinions on whether or not …

Assessment Of Characteristics And Conditions Before The End Of Lockdown, David San-Martín-Roldán, Francisca Rojo-Lazo, Aracelis Calzadilla-Núñez, Pablo San-Martín-Roldán, Patricia Díaz-Calzadilla, Víctor P. Díaz-Narváez

Kesmas

After months of blockades and restriction, the decision of the best time to end the lockdown after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is the big question for health rectors. This study aimed to evaluate the characteristics and conditions for ending the blockade after the first wave of COVID-19. Data on the variables of interest were subjected to linear and non-linear regression studies to determine the curve that best explains the data. The coefficient of determination, the standard deviation of y in x, and the observed curve of the confidence interval were estimated. Regression which was estimated subsequently revealed …

Computing For Numeracy: How Safe Is Your Covid-19 Social Bubble?, Charles Connor

Numeracy

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many people to form social bubbles. These social bubbles are small groups of people who interact with one another but restrict interactions with the outside world. The assumption in forming social bubbles is that risk of infection and severe outcomes, like hospitalization, are reduced. How effective are social bubbles? A Bayesian event tree is developed to calculate the probabilities of specific outcomes, like hospitalization, using example rates of infection in the greater community and example prior functions describing the effectiveness of isolation by members of the social bubble. The probabilities are solved for two contrasting …

Using Covid-19 Vaccine Efficacy Data To Teach One-Sample Hypothesis Testing, Frank Wang

Numeracy

In late November 2020, there was a flurry of media coverage of two companies’ claims of 95% efficacy rates of newly developed COVID-19 vaccines, but information about the confidence interval was not reported. This paper presents a way of teaching the concept of hypothesis testing and the construction of confidence intervals using numbers announced by the drug makers Pfizer and Moderna publicized by the media. Instead of a two-sample test or more complicated statistical models, we use the elementary one-proportion z-test to analyze the data. The method is designed to be accessible for students who have only taken a …

Covid-19 Pandemic In Brazil: Clinical Manifestation And Effect Of Comorbidities On Outcomes Of Hospitalized Sari Cases, Mario Keko, Karl E. Peace

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Hospitalized SARI cases of 2020 reported to the Ministry of Health of Brazil through the SIVEP Gripe system are subject to our analysis. They are classified as COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 and clinical manifestations and comorbidities are reported for each group. The time trend in the number of cases reported in 2020 is compared to the previous year and the performance of the PCR test is explored in each group. The proportion of death is reported among different subgroups of the patients by epidemiological week. Logistic and Poisson regression models are used to check the effect of comorbidities on clinical outcomes.

The Impact Of Covid-19 On Volunteering:Results Of A Survey Of Maine Non-Profits, Sarah Goan

Publications

In response to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly within the nonprofit sector that relies heavily on volunteers, Volunteer Maine sought to assess how volunteer capacity had been affected and what types of support organizations needed to rebuild. To accomplish this, the organization partnered with DIP and SRC to design and administer a statewide survey of nonprofit organizations. The purpose of the study was to understand the pandemic’s impact on the volunteer base, document organizational adjustments to changing conditions, identify innovative responses, and determine how Volunteer Maine and its affiliates could best assist in community recovery efforts. The …

Nutritional Approach For Increasing Public Health During Pandemic Of Covid-19: A Comprehensive Review Of Antiviral Nutrients And Nutraceuticals, Vahideh Ebrahimzadeh-Attari, Ghodratollah Panahi, James R. Hébert Scd, Alireza Ostadrahimi, Maryam Saghafi-Asl, Neda Lotfi-Yaghin, Behzad Baradaran

Faculty Publications

Background: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is considered as the most life-threatening pandemic disease during the last decade. The individual nutritional status, though usually ignored in the management of COVID-19, plays a critical role in the immune function and pathogenesis of infection. Accordingly, the present review article aimed to report the effects of nutrients and nutraceuticals on respiratory viral infections including COVID-19, with a focus on their mechanisms of action.

Methods: Studies were identified via systematic searches of the databases including PubMed/ MEDLINE, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Google Scholar from 2000 until April 2020, using keywords. All relevant clinical and experimental studies …

A Spectral Adjustment For Spatial Confounding, Yawen Guan, Garritt L. Page, Brian J. Reich, Massimo Ventrucci, Shu Yang

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Adjusting for an unmeasured confounder is generally an intractable problem, but in the spatial setting it may be possible under certain conditions. In this paper, we derive necessary conditions on the coherence between the treatment variable of interest and the unmeasured confounder that ensure the causal effect of the treatment is estimable. We specify our model and assumptions in the spectral domain to allow for different degrees of confounding at different spatial resolutions. The key assumption that ensures identifiability is that confounding present at global scales dissipates at local scales. We show that this assumption in the spectral domain is …

Multi-Level Small Area Estimation Based On Calibrated Hierarchical Likelihood Approach Through Bias Correction With Applications To Covid-19 Data, Nirosha Rathnayake

Theses & Dissertations

Small area estimation (SAE) has been widely used in a variety of applications to draw estimates in geographic domains represented as a metropolitan area, district, county, or state. The direct estimation methods provide accurate estimates when the sample size of study participants within each area unit is sufficiently large, but it might not always be realistic to have large sample sizes of study participants when considering small geographical regions. Meanwhile, high dimensional socio-ecological data exist at the community level, providing an opportunity for model-based estimation by incorporating rich auxiliary information at the individual and area levels. Thus, it is critical …

The Use Of Penalized Regression Analysis To Identify County-Level Demographic And Socioeconomic Variables Predictive Of Increased Covid-19 Cumulative Case Rates In The State Of Georgia, Holly L. Richmond, Joana Tome, Haresh Rochani, Isaac Chun-Hai Fung, Gulzar H. Shah, Jessica S. Schwind

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Systemic inequity concerning the social determinants of health has been known to affect morbidity and mortality for decades. Significant attention has focused on the individual-level demographic and co-morbid factors associated with rates and mortality of COVID-19. However, less attention has been given to the county-level social determinants of health that are the main drivers of health inequities. To identify the degree to which social determinants of health predict COVID-19 cumulative case rates at the county-level in Georgia, we performed a sequential, cross-sectional ecologic analysis using a diverse set of socioeconomic and demographic variables. Lasso regression was used to identify variables …

Call To Action: Sars-Cov-2 And Cerebrovascular Disorders (Cascade), Shahram Abootalebi, Benjamin M. Aertker, Mohammad Sobhan Andalibi, Negar Asdaghi, Ozlem Aykac, M. Reza Azarpazhooh, M. Cecilia Bahit, Kristian Barlinn, Hamidon Basri, Reza Bavarsad Shahripour, Anna Bersano, Jose Biller, Afshin Borhani-Haghighi, Robert D. Brown, Bruce Cv Campbell, Salvador Cruz-Flores, Deidre Anne De Silva, Mario Di Napoli, Afshin A. Divani, Randall C. Edgell, Johanna T. Fifi, Abdoreza Ghoreishi, Teruyuki Hirano, Keun Sik Hong, Chung Y. Hsu, Josephine F. Huang, Manabu Inoue, Amanda L. Jagolino, Moira Kapral, Hoo Fan Kee, Zafer Keser, Rakesh Khatri

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

Background and purpose: The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2), now named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), may change the risk of stroke through an enhanced systemic inflammatory response, hypercoagulable state, and endothelial damage in the cerebrovascular system. Moreover, due to the current pandemic, some countries have prioritized health resources towards COVID-19 management, making it more challenging to appropriately care for other potentially disabling and fatal diseases such as stroke. The aim of this study is to identify and describe changes in stroke epidemiological trends before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This is an international, multicenter, hospital-based …

Effect Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Eating Habits And Food Purchasing Behaviors Of University Students, Hacı Ömer Yilmaz, Ramazan Aslan, Cihan Unal

Kesmas

COVID-19 disease, which spread rapidly all over the world after the first case was detected, became the primary agenda of the countries. Radical measures have been taken by governments to prevent the spread of the disease. Precautions and warnings to prevent disease caused some changes on daily life activities of people. University students who have to stop education are among the groups most affected by this disease sociologically, psychologically and physiologically. The aim of this study was planned and conducted to determine the effect of COVID-19 on university students' eating habits and food purchasing behavior. The study was completed with …

Pre-Testing Of The Who’S Educational Video: “How To Protect Yourself Against Covid-19”, Hilyatul Fadliyah, Manendra Muhtar, Munih Munih, Sylviasari Risgiantini, Weny Wulandary, Hadi Pratomo

Kesmas

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was declared a public health emergency in many countries, including Indonesia. The World Health Organization (WHO) released an educational video, entitled "How to Protect Yourself Against COVID-19", which explained how to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This study is a qualitative study that aims to pre-test this video, based on the Information, Education, Communication (IEC) theory, by analyzing teenagers’ perceptions of the video. The design used was a Rapid Assessment Procedure (RAP), and the data were collected by conducting in-depth interviews with participants, through …

Impact Of Lockdown In India: A Case Study Comparing Kanataka With International Model, Stelvin Sebastian, Aby Paul, Jeeva Joseph, Joel Joby, Sanjo Saijan, Jobin Kunjumon Vilapurathu

Kesmas

The COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and a global health emergency by WHO, prompting various countries to implement early and stringent social distancing protocols through lockdown, to flatten the epidemic curve. The objective of the present study was to assess the impacts and effectiveness of the lockdown protocol in Karnataka and Punjab, compared with the implementation of this method in Australia and the UK. This study involved the collection of data from different authorized databases, in two phases. The first phase included the time starting with the first-reported index case through the 14th day after the declaration of lockdown, for …

Review Of Trial Therapies And Treatment For Covid-19: Lessons For Indonesia, Halma Zahro Mukhlida, Hilma Hasro Maulida, Gunanti Khairunnisa, Margaretha Josephine Mantrono, Risky Kusuma Hartono, Rindu Rindu, Eka R W Purnamasari, Rizky Fajar Meirawan

Kesmas

The infectious disease from Coronavirus Disease 2019, or COVID-19, has quickly spread world-wide since 2019. Therapies for managing COVID-19 have yet to be confirmed as medication for the severe sickness that the disease may cause. This study aimed to review the previous research of the efficacy of trial therapy and treatment to the patients in the hospital with COVID-19. Using PRISMA guidelines as a method for conducting a systematic literature review, a total of 67 articles were collected from several online journal databases. Various therapies were found that are effective in the treatment and management of COVID-19. In accordance with …

Excess Mortality From Covid-19: A Commentary On The Italian Experience, Paolo Pasquariello, Saverio Stranges

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

No abstract provided.

A Call For Consistency In The Official Naming Of The Disease Caused By Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 In Non-English Languages, Lu Dong, Zhe Li, Isaac Fung

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

We investigated the adoption of World Health Organization (WHO) naming of COVID-19 into the respective languages among the Group of Twenty (G20) countries, and the variation of COVID-19 naming in the Chinese language across different health authorities. On May 7, 2020, we identified the websites of the national health authorities of the G20 countries to identify naming of COVID-19 in their respective languages, and the websites of the health authorities in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Singapore and identify their Chinese name for COVID-19. Among the G20 nations, Argentina, China, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Turkey do …

An Examination Of Covid-19 Statistical Modeling, Shane Vaughan

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The 2019 novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, is an infectious disease which was first reported in late 2019 and soon spread to become a global pandemic, prompting major action from world governments. Soon after, many institutions began attempts to analyze and predict the spread and severity of the disease via statistical modeling. Some information is not available for public consumption; however, a number of institutions have published the results of their analyses and some have made public repositories of the code used to build the models. This research paper attempts use these and other resources to examine the modeling …