Biostatistics Commons^™

Of Rats And Men, Thomas S. Walsh

Capstones

This capstone is a data-driven investigation into New York City's rat problem. By using publicly available government data to map rat activity in NYC, I identified several socio-economic variables that correlate with rat populations at the community district, borough, and city-scale. I used these findings (mainly that rat problems are linked to lower incomes) as the basis of an investigation, which includes interviews with residents, experts, and city officials. Prof. Bobby Corrigan, urban rodentologist and formerly with the NYC Department of Health criticizes the city's efforts for the first time on the record.

https://thomasseiyawalsh.wixsite.com/ratstone

Enrichment Of Putatively Damaging Rare Variants In The Dyx2 Locus And The Reading-Related Genes Ccdc136 And Flnc, Andrew K. Adams, Shelley D. Smith, Dongnhu T. Truong, Erik G. Willcutt, Richard K. Olson, John C. Defries, Bruce F. Pennington, Jeffrey R. Gruen

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Eleven loci with prior evidence for association with reading and language phenotypes were sequenced in 96 unrelated subjects with significant impairment in reading performance drawn from the Colorado Learning Disability Research Center collection. Out of 148 total individual missense variants identified, the chromosome 7 genes CCDC136 and FLNC contained 19. In addition, a region corresponding to the well-known DYX2 locus for RD contained 74 missense variants. Both allele sets were filtered for a minor allele frequency ≤0.01 and high Polyphen-2 scores. To determine if observations of these alleles are occurring more frequently in our cases than expected by chance in …

Impact Of Home Visit Capacity On Genetic Association Studies Of Late-Onset Alzheimer's Disease, David W. Fardo, Laura E. Gibbons, Shubhabrata Mukherjee, M. Maria Glymour, Wayne Mccormick, Susan M. Mccurry, James D. Bowen, Eric B. Larson, Paul K. Crane

Biostatistics Faculty Publications

INTRODUCTION—Findings for genetic correlates of late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) in studies that rely solely on clinic visits may differ from those with capacity to follow participants unable to attend clinic visits.

METHODS—We evaluated previously identified LOAD-risk single nucleotide variants in the prospective Adult Changes in Thought study, comparing hazard ratios (HRs) estimated using the full data set of both in-home and clinic visits (n = 1697) to HRs estimated using only data that were obtained from clinic visits (n = 1308). Models were adjusted for age, sex, principal components to account for ancestry, and additional health indicators.

RESULTS …

Burden Of Atopic Dermatitis In The United States: Analysis Of Healthcare Claims Data In The Commercial, Medicare, And Medi-Cal Databases, Sulena Shrestha, Raymond Miao, Li Wang, Jingdong Chao, Huseyin Yuce, Wenhui Wei

Publications and Research

Comparative data on the burden of atopic dermatitis (AD) in adults relative to the general population are limited. We performed a large-scale evaluation of the burden of disease among US adults with AD relative to matched non-AD controls, encompassing comorbidities, healthcare resource utilization (HCRU), and costs, using healthcare claims data. The impact of AD disease severity on these outcomes was also evaluated.

White Blood Cell Dna Methylation And Risk Of Breast Cancer In The Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, And Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (Plco), Susan R. Sturgeon, J. Richard Pilsner, Kathleen F. Arcaro, Kaoru Ikuma, Haotian Wu, Soon-Mi Kim, Nayha Chopra-Tandon, Adam R. Karpf, Regina G. Ziegler, Catherine Schairer, Raji Balasubramanian, David A. Reckhow

Biostatistics and Epidemiology Faculty Publications Series

Background

Several studies have suggested that global DNA methylation in circulating white blood cells (WBC) is associated with breast cancer risk.

Methods

To address conflicting results and concerns that the findings for WBC DNA methylation in some prior studies may reflect disease effects, we evaluated the relationship between global levels of WBC DNA methylation in white blood cells and breast cancer risk in a case-control study nested within the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO) cohort. A total of 428 invasive breast cancer cases and 419 controls, frequency matched on age at entry (55–59, 60–64, 65–69, ≥70 …

Juvenile Remains: Predicting Body Mass And Stature In Modern American Populations, Erin F E Pinkston

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

There are increasing numbers of unidentified persons in the U.S. and abroad. To generate positive identifications, forensic anthropologists and others working in the medicolegal field employ a variety of methods to produce biological profiles to match to case files and missing persons databases. Body mass, and stature are two important components of a biological profile, and both can be estimated using regression formulae derived from skeletal metrics. In cases of unidentified juvenile remains, these are particularly important metrics, as it is difficult or impossible to determine sex in prepubescent remains, and the quality of ancestry estimation is currently under debate …

Alcohol Consumption And Breast Tumor Gene Expression, Jun Wang, Yujing J. Heng, A. Heather Eliassen, Rull M. Tamimi, Aditi Hazra, Vincent J. Carey, Christine B. Ambrosone, Victor P. De Andrade, Adam Brufsky, Fergus J. Couch, Tari A. King, Francesmary Modugno, Celine M. Vachon, David J. Hunter, Andrew H. Beck, Susan E. Hankinson

Biostatistics and Epidemiology Faculty Publications Series

Background

Alcohol consumption is an established risk factor for breast cancer and the association generally appears stronger among estrogen receptor (ER)-positive tumors. However, the biological mechanisms underlying this association are not completely understood.

Methods

We analyzed messenger RNA (mRNA) microarray data from both invasive breast tumors (N = 602) and tumor-adjacent normal tissues (N = 508) from participants diagnosed with breast cancer in the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and NHSII. Multivariable linear regression, controlling for other known breast cancer risk factors, was used to identify differentially expressed genes by pre-diagnostic alcohol intake. For pathway analysis, we performed gene …