Senior Demographic and Health Researcher (Open until filled)
Research by Phipps and Co-authors on Polygenic Risk Scores to Enhance Accuracy and Equity
CSDE Affiliate Amanda Phipps (Epidemiology) and co-authors recently published their research in the Nature Communications, titled “Combining Asian and European genome-wide association studies of colorectal cancer improves risk prediction across racial and ethnic populations“. Polygenic risk scores (PRS) have great potential to guide precision colorectal cancer (CRC) prevention by identifying those at higher risk to undertake targeted screening. However, current PRS using European ancestry data have sub-optimal performance in non-European ancestry populations, limiting their utility among these populations. Towards addressing this deficiency, we expand PRS development for CRC by incorporating Asian ancestry data (21,731 cases; 47,444 controls) into European ancestry training datasets (78,473 cases; 107,143 controls). The AUC estimates (95% CI) of PRS are 0.63(0.62-0.64), 0.59(0.57-0.61), 0.62(0.60-0.63), and 0.65(0.63-0.66) in independent datasets including 1681-3651 cases and 8696-115,105 controls of Asian, Black/African American, Latinx/Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White, respectively. They are significantly better than the European-centric PRS in all four major US racial and ethnic groups (p-values < 0.05). Further inclusion of non-European ancestry populations, especially Black/African American and Latinx/Hispanic, is needed to improve the risk prediction and enhance equity in applying PRS in clinical practice.
HIV Treatment is the Focus of New Article by John-Stewart and Co-authors
New research on HIV treatment is published by CSDE Affiliate Grace John-Stewart (Global Health, Epidemiology, Medicine, and Pediatrics) and co-authors. The article “Higher HIV-1 Env gp120-Specific Antibody-Dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity (ADCC) Activity Is Associated with Lower Levels of Defective HIV-1 Provirus” is published in the Viruses. A cure for HIV-1 (HIV) remains unrealized due to a reservoir of latently infected cells that persist during antiretroviral therapy (ART), with reservoir size associated with adverse health outcomes and inversely with time to viral rebound upon ART cessation. Once established during ART, the HIV reservoir decays minimally over time; thus, understanding factors that impact the size of the HIV reservoir near its establishment is key to improving the health of people living with HIV and for the development of novel cure strategies. Yet, to date, few correlates of HIV reservoir size have been identified, particularly in pediatric populations. Here, we employed a cross-subtype intact proviral DNA assay (CS-IPDA) to quantify HIV provirus between one- and two-years post-ART initiation in a cohort of Kenyan children (n = 72), which had a median of 99 intact (range: 0–2469), 1340 defective (range: 172–3.84 × 104), and 1729 total (range: 178–5.11 × 104) HIV proviral copies per one million T cells. Additionally, pre-ART plasma was tested for HIV Env-specific antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) activity. We found that pre-ART gp120-specific ADCC activity inversely correlated with defective provirus levels (n = 68, r = −0.285, p = 0.0214) but not the intact reservoir (n = 68, r = −0.0321, p-value = 0.800). Pre-ART gp41-specific ADCC did not significantly correlate with either proviral population (n = 68; intact: r = −0.0512, p-value = 0.686; defective: r = −0.109, p-value = 0.389). This suggests specific host immune factors prior to ART initiation can impact proviruses that persist during ART.
CSSS Seminar with Wakefield on an Improved Method to Calculate COVID-19 Deaths (10/18/23)
CSDE Affiliate Jon Wakefield (Statistics and Biostatistics) will present research at the CSSS seminar on Wednesday, Oct. 18th at 12:30 in 409 Savery Hall and on zoom (register here). Estimating the true mortality burden of COVID-19 for every country in the world by age and sex is a difficult, but crucial, public health endeavor. Attributing deaths, direct or indirect, to COVID-19 is problematic. A more attainable target is the “excess deaths”, the number of deaths in a particular period, relative to that expected during “normal times”, and authors develop a model for this endeavor. The excess mortality requires two numbers, the total deaths and the expected deaths, but the former is unavailable for many countries, and so modeling is required for such countries. The expected deaths are based on historic data and authors develop a model for producing estimates of these deaths for all countries. They allow for uncertainty in the modeled expected numbers when calculating the excess. The methods described were used to produce the World Health Organization (WHO) excess death estimates. Initial estimates were aggregated across age and sex, but authors will outline progress towards producing disaggregated estimates.
Freitag to Present Research on Later-Life Poverty and the Social Safety Net for Older Adults (10/18/23)
CSDE Trainee Callie Freitag will be presenting a talk at the Evans Research Seminar on Wed. Oct 18th at 11:30am in 360 Parrington Hall. Come learn about her work from this talk entitled, “Waiting to Benefit: Age-Based Disability Regulations and Pathways to Supplemental Security Income Take-Up in Later Life,” and about the broader dissertation project that focuses on understanding and addressing poverty in later life.
CSDE Seminar: Uncovering the Precursors of Change: Examining Cross-Racial Youth Mentoring Relationships Between Non-Black Mentors and Black Youth
CSDE and the Population Health Initiative are pleased to host CSDE Affiliate Kristian Jones (UW, Social Work) this Friday, Oct. 20th in 101 HRC and on Zoom. Dr. Jones’ study focuses on the examination of the potential precursors of change for Black youth within community-based youth mentoring programs. Youth mentoring programs are popular interventions for promoting positive youth development and preventing detrimental outcomes. However, despite these programs serving a large number of Black youths throughout the country, there is scarce empirical evidence describing the specific processes by which mentoring programs result in positive outcomes for Black youth. Interestingly, although the majority of youth in community-based mentoring programs identify as Black, the majority of mentors identify as White. Thus, this study implemented a constructivist grounded theory (CGT) approach to examine, non-Black mentors’ perceptions of potential precursors of change experienced by Black youth in a community-based mentoring program. The resulting theoretical framework is exploratory in nature and constitutes the initial step of a long-term program of research, focused on understanding mechanisms of change experienced by Black youth in mentoring programs.
Kristian Jones, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the University Washington in the School of Social Work. His program of research examines how youth mentoring relationships can be utilized to prevent adverse outcomes and promote positive strengths for Black youth. As a Black male scholar, his research is grounded in his passion for equity and inclusion, specifically as it relates to marginalized youth and their families. Prior to being a faculty member, he worked as a Foster Care Counselor at Youth Villages in Cookeville, Tennessee and as a Community Support Therapist in Stone Mountain, Georgia. He received his PhD in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin, his Master’s of Education in Counseling from Boston University, a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Albany State University in Albany, Georgia.