Research and Education
Our faculty and staff contributed to 113 scientific articles, 50 percent more than in FY2011. Collaborative papers ranged across all pediatric subspecialties, 15 involved the development or application of novel quantitative methods, and DBE faculty were first authors of 11. We participated in 77 active research grants, with annual direct costs totaling $45.5 million (direct costs: $4.7 million). Our faculty led independent research in statistical methods development and application and in areas of epidemiologic research. Examples include the NSF grant “Extension of Censored Quantile and Empirical Likelihood” led by Mi-Ok Kim, PhD ; the biostatistical core of the NIH grant “Hemorrhagic & Ischemic Stroke Among Blacks & Whites," led by Jane Khoury, PhD; the HRSA grant “Impact of Cognition on Language in Pediatric Hearing Loss,” led by Jareen Meinzen-Derr, PhD; and the NIH grant “Neurobehavioral and Neuroimaging Effects of Traffic Exposure in Children,” led by Patrick Ryan, PhD, MS. Our faculty taught in the Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy and Arts and the MS program in Clinical Science sponsored by the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training (CCTST). Our Graduate Statistics Internship Program led by Bin Huang, PhD, and Siva Sivaganesan, PhD, UC Department of Mathematical Sciences, provided educational and research opportunities for PhD students and was beneficial to research projects in eight divisions at Cincinnati Children’s. During FY2012, seven graduated students participated, and five more will join the program next year.
Capacity Building
We recruited five new faculty in the past year: Lili Ding, PhD, a biostatistician interested in Bayesian modeling and inference and its application in statistical genetics, population pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, multivariate survival analysis, and multilevel latent variable modeling; Heidi Sucharew, PhD, a biostatistician interested in structural equation modeling, latent profile analysis and latent variable modeling and their application in infant neurobehavior, stroke severity, adolescent menstrual symptoms and depression, and glucose control during pregnancy; Patrick Ryan, PhD, MS, an epidemiologist interested in the development of devices and methods for assessing environmental exposures, the health effects of indoor and traffic-related air pollution and of asbestos, including childhood asthma and neurobehavioral development, and interventions to reduce the impact of traffic-related air pollution at schools; Monir Hossain, PhD, MSc, a biostatistician interested in developing statistical methods for complex biomedical applications who has developed spatial and spatiotemporal models for cluster detection for small area health data in environmental health and health economics; and Bin Zhang, PhD, a biostatistician interested in developing methods for clinical trials, survival analysis, longitudinal data analysis and optimal design, with applications in cancer, infectious diseases, asthma, cardiovascular diseases and health behavior.
Infrastructure Development
Our growing Data Management Center (DMC) supported 45 studies, up from 22 in FY2011. Services offered by the DMC include grant application review, budgeting and resourcing for data management operations, protocol review, case report form design and development, database entry and development as well as documentation, data cleaning and preparation for analysis. Eileen King, PhD, acting director, and Rachel Akers, MPH, manager of operations, lead the DMC, which is staffed with five Clinical Research Data Specialists, four Clinical Research Database Developers, and four Data Coordinators, five more than in FY2011. DMC staff members are required to participate in continuing education programs and are active in a number of different professional societies: three are Certified Clinical Data Managers. The DMC launched its website in 2012. The Biostatistics Consulting Unit (BCU) was established in 2012 to expedite access to biostatistical consulting and collaboration at Cincinnati Children’s. The BCU works in alignment with the CCTST as part of “Research Central.” Mekibib Altaye, PhD, director, and Matthew Fenchel, MS, manager, lead the BCU, which includes three master’s level statisticians. The BCU has expertise in study design including sample size estimation, grant preparation, statistical analysis and manuscript preparation. Its primary emphasis is to ensure appropriate use of statistical methods in research design and data analysis.
