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Overview
History
In the early 1980's, two biostatisticians joined the faculty of the
Department of Medicine. In 1984 they were joined by a third member and formed
the Section of Biostatistics within the Regenstrief Institute for Health Care.
The collaborative work soon extended beyond both the Department of Medicine and
the School of Medicine. The Section became an acknowledged Division of the
Department of Medicine in the late 1980’s. Today, the Division has 14 faculty
members who work with researchers in the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, and
Nursing. The support staff includes a number of masters-level biostatisticians
and data managers. The expanded faculty has also taken on new responsibilities
in the education of graduate students and clinical fellows.
Mission
The Division of Biostatistics on the Indiana
University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus is a working group of
statistical and data professionals who provide leadership in statistical
techniques in biostatistics and bioinformatics, data management, and data
integration.
Our mission is carried out through collaborative research, statistical research,
education, and service activities. We partner and foster collaboration with
researchers in the health sciences in the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry,
Informatics, Nursing, Science, and all others who seek our expertise in study
design, statistical analysis, and data management. Our research spectrum is ever
expanding and spans areas of clinical, laboratory, epidemiologic, behavioral,
and health services studies.
Vision
The Division of Biostatistics endeavors to improve
health and well-being in the State of Indiana and throughout the world through
excellence in integrating innovative and state-of-the-art statistical and data
management methodologies with other health sciences research. We strive for
national and international recognition in our areas of expertise as we reach out
to all biomedical researchers on campus through collaborative and statistical
research, education, and service. As science and technology advance, we seek
to be at the forefront of techniques required to translate research from
scientific concepts into valuable knowledge for clinical implementation.
Teaching Activities
The Division is responsible for the teaching of biostatistics and epidemiology to students
and clinical fellows. The Division offers training opportunities to several groups
of students.
The Division teaches a two-semester course in statistics for graduate students
and post-graduate clinical fellows from various departments in the Schools of
Medicine, Dentistry, and Nursing. This course provides basic statistical
knowledge and computer skills. It prepares these students to design their own
research projects and analyze data using a wide variety of statistical
techniques.
Outside the School of Medicine, the faculty teaches a course required for all
graduate students (post-D.D.S.) in the School of Dentistry. This broad
introduction to study design and statistical analysis is one of the six
designated core courses required for all dental graduate students at the start
of their training.
It also teaches a course geared toward students in the School of
Nursing’s Ph.D. program. The course
includes topics in multivariate analysis such as factor analysis and structural
equation modeling.
Finally, the Division periodically offers a course entitled “Biostatistics for
Physicians: A Short Course.” This course runs three successive half-days and
has been offered approximately every 18 months. The course, stressing concepts
rather than a mastery of technique, is open to clinicians both within and
outside Indiana University. CME credit is available for those attending the
course.
Research Activities
The major activities of the Division involve
collaborative and independent research. The degree of collaboration varies with
different projects. These activities include study design, data management,
data analysis, and interpretation of results. Thus, the biostatistician and
support staff are usually involved in all aspects of the research, from
conceptualizing the study to the eventual writing of final reports and
manuscripts. A major component of biostatistical collaboration involves the
choice and implementation of appropriate analytical methods for the resulting
research data. In some cases, these research activities require modification of
available statistical methods and/or the development of new statistical
procedures to meet the unique needs of a particular project. Thus, the
collaborative and independent research components are inter-connected and
mutually reinforcing.
Currently, the Division faculty are co-investigators on a number of research
projects in various subspecialties of Medicine, (e.g., Clinical Pharmacology,
Endocrinology, Hematology, Oncology, Rheumatology), and in the General Clinical
Research Center (GCRC), Health Services Research, Neurology, Otolaryngology,
Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Radiology and the School of Nursing. The faculty also
serve as Directors of individual projects or Biostatistics Cores in a number of
NIH-funded centers and program projects, including the Cancer Center, Midwest
Sexually Transmitted Diseases Cooperative Research Center, Alzheimer’s Disease
Center, Center for Enhancing Quality of Life in Chronic Illness, bone and
osteoporosis research program project, shock-wave lithotripsy program project,
and program project for research in the detection and treatment of early caries.
In addition, members of our faculty are the principal investigators on several
grants.
Dr. Constantin Yiannoutsos is the PI of a
NIH funded grant (through the University of Rochester) entitled “HIV Associated
Cognitive Impairment and Oxidative Stress: An In-Vivo Proton Magnetic Resonance
Spectroscopy Study of Cerebral Injury”.
Dr. Patrick Monahan is the PI of three grants, “Improving Item Bias Detection in
Cancer Control Scales” (NIH), “Modification of the Mantel-Haenszel Procedure for
Improving Accuracy in the Detection of Differential Item Function in Cancer
Screening Questionnaires (Walther Cancer Institute), and “Development and
Validation of Patient Preference for Diabetes Treatment (Eli Lilly & Co.).
Dr. Sujuan Gao is the PI on two NIH funded grants, “Selenium Levels and
Cognitive Decline in Rural Elderly Chinese”, and “Statistical Methods in
Longitudinal Studies of Dementia”.
Finally, Dr. Wanzhu Tu is the PI on a NIH funded grant entitled “Statistical
Tools for Daily STD/HIV Behavioral Reports”.
Service Activities
For many research projects, the Division provides
complete support of data management from the initial design of forms, through
setting up, entering, and maintaining databases, data entry and verification,
and finally, preparing data for analyses. The Division also provides advice to
researchers on the choice of computer software for various purposes.
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