Biostatistics Commons^™

Methods For Making Policy-Relevant Forecasts Of Infectious Disease Incidence, Stephen A. Lauer

Doctoral Dissertations

Infectious diseases place an enormous burden on the people of the developing world and their governments. When, where, and how to allocate resources in order to slow the spread of a virus or deal with the aftermath of an outbreak is often the responsibility of local public health officials. In this thesis, we develop statistical methods for forecasting future incidence of infectious diseases and estimating the effects of interventions designed to reduce future incidence, bearing in mind the needs and concerns of those public health officials. While most infectious disease forecasting models focus on short-term horizons (i.e. weeks or …

Population Viability And Connectivity Of The Federally Threatened Eastern Indigo Snake In Central Peninsular Florida, Javan Bauder

Doctoral Dissertations

Understanding the factors influencing the likelihood of persistence of real-world populations requires both an accurate understanding of the traits and behaviors of individuals within those populations (e.g., movement, habitat selection, survival, fecundity, dispersal) but also an understanding of how those traits and behaviors are influenced by landscape features. The federally threatened eastern indigo snake (EIS, Drymarchon couperi) has declined throughout its range primarily due to anthropogenically-induced habitat loss and fragmentation making spatially-explicit assessments of population viability and connectivity essential for understanding its current status and directing future conservation efforts. The primary goal of my dissertation was to understand how …

Flavonoid Intake And Plasma Sex Steroid Hormones, Prolactin, And Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin In Premenopausal Women, You Wu, Susan E. Hankinson, Stephanie A. Smith-Warner, Molin Wang, A. Heather Eliassen

Biostatistics and Epidemiology Faculty Publications Series

Background: Flavonoids potentially exert anti-cancer effects, as suggested by their chemical structures and supported by animal studies. In observational studies, however, the association between flavonoids and breast cancer, and potential underlying mechanisms, remain unclear. Objective: To examine the relationship between flavonoid intake and sex hormone levels using timed blood samples in follicular and luteal phases in the Nurses’ Health Study II among premenopausal women. Methods: Plasma concentrations of estrogens, androgens, progesterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), DHEA sulfate (DHEAS), prolactin, and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) were measured in samples collected between 1996 and 1999. Average flavonoid were calculated from semiquantitative food frequency questionnaires …

Pregnancies, Abortions, And Pregnancy Intentions: A Protocol For Modeling And Reporting Global, Regional And Country Estimates, Jonathan Marc Bearak, Anna Popinchalk, Gilda Sedgh, Bela Ganatra, Ann-Beth Moller, Özge Tunçalp, Leontine Alkema

Biostatistics and Epidemiology Faculty Publications Series

Background

Estimates of pregnancies, abortions and pregnancy intentions can help assess how effectively women and couples are able to fulfil their childbearing aspirations. Abortion incidence estimates are also a necessary foundation for research on the safety of abortions performed and the consequences of unsafe abortion. Furthermore, periodic estimates of these indicators are needed to help inform policy and programmes.

Methods

We will develop a Bayesian hierarchical times series model which estimates levels and trends in pregnancy rates, abortion rates, and percentages of pregnancies and births unintended for each five-year period between 1990 and 2019. The model will be informed by …

Identifying Metabolomic Profiles Of Insulinemic Dietary Patterns, Fred K. Tabung, Raji Balasubramanian, Liming Liang, Steven K. Clinton, Elizabeth M. Cespedes Feliciano, Joann E. Manson, Linda Van Horn, Jean Wactawski-Wende, Clary B. Clish, Edward L. Giowanucci, Kathryn M. Rexrode

Biostatistics and Epidemiology Faculty Publications Series

The food-based empirical dietary index for hyperinsulinemia (EDIH) score assesses the insulinemic potential of diet. This cross-sectional study evaluated associations between EDIH scores from food frequency questionnaires with c-peptide concentrations and with 448 metabolites, from fasting plasma samples, in multivariable linear regression analyses. Metabolites were measured with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectroscopy. Using a robust two-stage study design, discovery of metabolite associations was conducted among 1109 Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Hormone Therapy (HT) trial participants and results replicated in an independent dataset of 810 WHI Observational Study (OS) participants. In both discovery and replication datasets, statistical significance was based on …