NOSI to Support Enhancement of Software Tools for Multilevel Mediation Analysis for Investigating Effects of Environmental and Individual Risk Factors on Respiratory Diseases

NOSI 支持增强多级中介分析软件工具，以调查环境和个人风险因素对呼吸道疾病的影响

• 批准号: 10403859
• 负责人: Stephania A Cormier
• 金额: $ 22.7万
• 依托单位: LOUISIANA STATE UNIV A&M COL BATON ROUGE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-02 至 2022-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10403859
• 关键词: Address; Adoption; Affect; Air Pollutants; Algorithmic Software; Australia; Behavioral; Big Data; Birth; Categories; Chemicals; Child; Cloud Computing; Code; Communities; Complex; Computer software; Computers; Data; Data Analyses; Data Set; Drops; Engineering; Environment; Exposure to; Fire - disasters; Free Radicals; Geographic Locations; Graph; Hazardous Waste Sites; Health; House Dust; Individual; Internet; Intervention; Intuition; Knowledge; Language; Life; Link; Literature; Lung diseases; Measures; Mediating; Mediation; Mediator of activation protein; Methods; Modeling; Outcome; Particulate Matter; Pathway interactions; Performance; Policy Maker; Population; Quality of life; Queensland; R programming language; Research; Research Personnel; Resources; Risk Factors; Science; Scientific Inquiry; Scientist; Software Engineering; Software Tools; Source; Speed; Statistical Methods; Stephania; Structure; Superfund; Taxes; Techniques; Technology; Testing; Universities; Visual; Writing; base; cloud based; cohort; computing resources; data management; data mining; design; experience; health disparity; improved; novel; parallel computer; predictive modeling; programs; prospective; pulmonary function; respiratory; respiratory health; skills; software development; tool; usability

Multilevel Mediation Analysis for Investigating Effects of Environmental and Individual Risk Factors on Respiratory Diseases The link between particulate matter (PM) exposure and poor respiratory health is well established. Through Aim 3 of Project 1, the LSU Superfund Research Center postulates that environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) from hazardous waste sites, incinerators/chemical fires, and other sources is the missing mechanistic link between PM exposure and poor respiratory health. We will investigate the mediation of this association using hierarchical mediation analysis to decompose the air pollutant adverse respiratory effects into direct and indirect (EPFR-mediated) effects. We developed a multilevel mediation analysis method that allows for both longitudinal assessments of residential environments and individual risk factors to be jointly utilized in determining the mechanistic link between exposure to PM and poor respiratory health. By including measures of individual behavioral factors our methods are capable of explaining existing disparities in health outcomes. We have implemented our method as an R package (mlma) to provide the research community with open access to software for performing multilevel hierarchical mediation analysis. However, use of our R package does require knowledge of R, which limits its broader use in research. To address this limitation, we propose to collaborate with a software engineer at LSU to create an API for an interactive web implementation of our mediation software. We expect that this would greatly expand access to our methods, as no programming will be required. The proposed app, with its intuitive interactive visual interface, will allow users to easily read in datasets and build a conceptual mediation model framework using drag-and-drop functionality. We will also provide graphical tools such as directed acyclic graphs to allow users to visually interpret the analysis results. In addition, we will transform part of the computing to an efficient low-level computer language to improve computational speed and plan to use cloud computing resources so that R and associated software packages do not have to be installed on individual computers to perform the analysis.

多级中介分析，用于研究环境和个人的影响 呼吸道疾病的危险因素 颗粒物（PM）暴露与呼吸健康不良之间的联系很好 已确立的。通过项目1的AIM 3，LSU超级基金研究中心假设 来自危险废物站点的环境持续的自由基（EPFR）， 焚化炉/化学火灾和其他来源是PM之间缺少的机械联系 暴露和呼吸健康不良。我们将使用 分层调解分析将空气污染物不良呼吸效应分解为 直接和间接（EPFR介导的）效应。 我们开发了一种多级中介分析方法，该方法允许纵向 评估住宅环境和个人风险因素将共同利用 确定暴露于PM和呼吸不良之间的机械联系。经过 包括衡量个体行为因素的度量，我们的方法能够解释 现有的健康结果差异。 我们已将方法作为R软件包（MLMA）实施，以提供研究社区 开放访问软件以执行多级分层中介分析。然而， 使用R软件包确实需要对R的了解，这限制了其在研究中的广泛使用。到 解决此限制，我们建议与LSU的软件工程师合作，以创建 用于我们的中介软件的交互式Web实现的API。我们希望这会 大大扩展了对我们方法的访问，因为不需要编程。提议的应用程序， 凭借其直观的交互式视觉界面，将允许用户轻松阅读数据集并构建一个 使用拖放功能的概念中介模型框架。我们还将提供 图形工具（例如定向无环形图）允许用户在视觉上解释分析 结果。此外，我们将一部分计算转换为有效的低级计算机 提高计算速度并计划使用云计算资源的语言，以便 并且相关的软件包不必安装在单个计算机上 执行分析。