Wednesday 22 April 2020 | 12:30–1:30pm Pacific Time
Technical and statistical issues in wastewater-based drug epidemiology
Jason R. Williams PhD
Research Scientist, The Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, University of Washington. https://adai.uw.edu/staff_members/jason-r-williams-phd/
Abstract: Wastewater-based epidemiology has potential to shed population-level insight on a host of hidden or not otherwise readily measureable phenomena, including measures of health functioning and levels of licit or illicit drug use. It is a relatively young and very multidisciplinary field that has and will continue to benefit from insights from various branches of statistics. In this presentation, we review some of those contributions. We will focus on the various pieces that must be assembled to create estimates of drug use, associated measurement issues, and areas for future improvement.
Note: Throughout the Spring 2020 quarter, the CSSS Seminar Series will be conducted online via Zoom. Interested participants can join us at the following password-protected link.
Link: https://washington.zoom.us/j/91254070244?pwd=a3MzRVd3OWxoMGNmZFl5K1dhMVlaZz09
Password: CSSS.JW.EP
NOT-OD-20-089: Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Competitive Revisions for Firearms Injury and Mortality Prevention Research https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-20-089.html
PAR-20-143: Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention Research (R61 Clinical Trial Optional) https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-20-143.html
Nearly 40,000 people in the U.S. die from firearm-related deaths each year, primarily from suicide (60%) or homicide (37%), and many more have experienced non-fatal firearm injuries, both intentional and nonintentional. The Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the FY2020 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 1865) included funding for the NIH to conduct research on firearm injury and mortality prevention and recommended that NIH take a comprehensive approach to studying the underlying causes and evidence-based methods of prevention of firearm injury, including crime prevention. Within the legislative mandates and limitations of NIH funding (NOT-OD-20-068, NOT-OD-20-066), the NIH encourages research to improve understanding of the determinants of firearm injury, the identification of those at risk of firearm injury (including both victims and perpetrators), the development and evaluation of innovative interventions to prevent firearm injury and mortality, and the examination of approaches to improve the implementation of existing, evidence-based interventions to prevent firearm injury and mortality.
NIMH is issuing this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to highlight interest in research to strengthen the mental health response to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and to future public health emergencies, including pandemics. NIMH is especially interested in research to provide an evidence base for how a disrupted workforce may adequately respond/adapt to and maintain services or provide additional care for new or increasing mental health needs, as well as to learn about the effects of the virus and public health measures to prevent spread of COVID-19 that may have an impact on mental health. Research addressing the intersection of COVID-19, mental health, and HIV treatment and prevention are also of interest to NIMH.
This initiative will support multidisciplinary research examining mechanisms underlying racial and ethnic disparities in maternal mortality and morbidity, testing the efficacy and/or effectiveness of multi-level interventions, and/or research strategies to optimally and sustainably deliver proven-effective prevention and treatment interventions to reduce these disparities. Only one application per institution. For more information, visit: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-MD-20-008.html. Due May 29.
This Friday, CSDE Regional Affiliate Amy Bailey and Allison Suppan Helmuth will co-present on ZIP code boundary changes. ZIP Codes are an important geographic identifier, frequently the best spatial measure available in spatially-referenced administrative data. As such, they represent an underutilized, potentially valuable tool allowing social scientists to embed individuals and institutions within neighborhood contexts. However, ZIP Codes frequently change, particularly in areas undergoing rapid change. Unfortunately, no tool allows researchers to account for these changes. In this presentation, Bailey and Helmuth will briefly cover the history of ZIP Codes and how the intended usage by USPS differs from the ways in which social and demographic researchers might want to use them.
The computational demography working group will meet virtually this quarter! Please join us on Thursday, 4/30, at 12pm for a presentation and discussion of SafeGraph Mobility Data by registering with through this link. Sociology graduate student Chuck Lanfear will demonstrate a digital trace data set for mobility research obtained by Adrian Dobra of UW Statistics and CS&SS. They are soliciting new project and collaborations ideas for these unique data.
The meeting will be hosted over Zoom. Register for the working group meeting HERE
The CDWG is sponsored by CSDE and the eScience Institute. You can find out more about us on our website here: https://csde-uw.github.io/computational-demography/.
CSDE is inviting applications for its 3rd annual Summer Grant Writing Program – a chance for you to learn more about NIH grant-writing and to workshop your proposal with other participants and with experienced senior faculty. Writing a grant in isolation can be mystifying—instead, we aim to create a group experience that is still hard work, but which will be supportive, fun, productive, and ultimately rewarding.
If you’ve been on the fence about writing a proposal, now is the time to dive in!
Full information and the application instructions and form are at: https://csde.washington.edu/research/csde-grant-writing-summer-program/.
In brief, participants will develop proposals over the course of the summer, with support and reviews from senior mentors, other participants, and the program coordinator Steve Goodreau.
Who is eligible to apply? All CSDE affiliates (local or regional) are eligible to apply. UW students and post-docs are eligible to apply only if they plan a training grant centered at UW. Applications from collaborative teams, anticipating a multiple PI arrangement, are also encouraged.
New this year—we are requesting that applicants include a letter demonstrating some form of matching support from their unit (department/school/center/college/etc.) This can take many forms, including some summer salary, research expenses, or RA support, all paid directly from the unit to the participant. Please consider this request early in order to leave time to arrange for a letter demonstrating this support.
Applications are due Friday, May 8 at 6 pm PDT.
Please email Development Core Director Steve Goodreau (goodreau@uw.edu) with any questions!
“Can’t I please just visit one friend?” is a question that many of us have asked during social distancing. Nevertheless, in a website that visualizes social networks, CSDE Affiliates Steven Goodreau and Martina Morris demonstrate how visiting “just one friend” can undo the work of measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The website depicts multiple network simulations of a 200 households community using the programming language R.
While visiting “just one friend” may seem harmless, Goodreau and Morris’ simulations demonstrate how 71% of households can easily become connected if only some households establish social connections with others—consequently, each of these connections is an opportunity for the virus to spread.
As Morris emphasized in last week’s NYT article on COVID transmission, she stated for UW News that “with COVID-19, many types of connections can transmit the virus…what we show is that you don’t need superspreaders to create network connectivity for transmission; visiting just one friend is equally effective for connecting a community into one large cluster.”
Goodreau and Morris’ website and simulations have been featured in multiple recent news articles in UW News, the New York Times, KIRO 7, Medium, and KUOW/NPR. Additionally, CSDE Student Emily Pollock and research scientists Jeanette Birnbaum and Deven Hamilton collaborated with Goodreau and Morris on this project. In Goodreau’s words, “This was a quick time-sensitive effort, but it builds upon years and years of work by the Network Modeling Group, all made possible by CSDE’s strong research infrastructure and intellectual community.”
The first PAA2020-V real time sessions begin Thursday, April 23. Click here for a list of sessions that will take place in real time. Each link on this list will take you to the sessions’ page in the online/mobile app, and from there you can find each session’s zoom or other platform link, which are not posted directly online for security reasons. You can also click on a session in the schedule section of the online app for that information, which will also allow you to see which sessions will be asynchronous. Please note that some sessions require preregistration and some sessions require passwords.
Real Time Session List l Session Schedule l Virtual PAA Information Page
The National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) are collaborating on two survey item repositories. Researchers are encouraged to use these platforms (NIH Public Health Emergency and Disaster Research Response (DR2) and PhenX Toolkit) to enhance research capacities for comparative insights and to advance knowledge more efficiently and effective.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, researchers with existing longitudinal cohorts and survey samples have been developing and fielding new survey items assessing various COVID-19 specific domains such as symptoms, knowledge and attitudes, adherence to various mitigation behaviors, social impacts, and economic impacts. Efforts to standardize or harmonize COVID-19 survey items, however, did not appear feasible given the urgency to field items as early as possible during the pandemic.
To minimize the proliferation of one-off survey items, encourage comparisons across samples, and facilitate data integration and collaboration, a trans-NIH working group co-led by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) worked to make existing COVID-19 survey items and investigator contact information available in a survey item repository. Two NIH-supported survey item platforms have made this expanding list of survey items available as a resource for researchers interested in assessing COVID-19 specific domains.
— NIH Public Health Emergency and Disaster Research Response (DR2): The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM) host the DR2 site which now includes a list of COVID-19 surveys and the domains assessed in the surveys. In addition to this COVID-19 list, DR2 provides a wide array of data collection tools and resources used in other public health emergencies and disasters, providing researchers with a rich repository of survey and other measurement tools that are applicable to the COVID-19 pandemic.
— PhenX Toolkit: The PhenX Toolkit now includes a list of COVID-19 related measurement protocols drawn from the surveys listed in DR2. These COVID-19 survey protocols have not been vetted as per the PhenX consensus process but are made available for other researchers to consider, and to test as needed, before incorporating in their research studies. The PhenX Toolkit, funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and other NIH Institutes and Centers (see list here), has a large collection of well-established and vetted measurement protocols suitable to incorporate into studies involving COVID-19.
Researchers addressing COVID-19 questions, whether population-based or for clinical research, are encouraged to consider these COVID-19 specific survey item repositories and select existing survey items or protocol modules currently being fielded. Researchers with additional survey items about to be fielded are encouraged to make them public for other researchers to consider by submitting the survey to NIHCOVID19Measures@nih.gov.