Statistical Methods In Human Development/clinical Studie

该项目力求为人类发展中的问题开发新的统计技术，并以新的方式将现有技术应用于这些问题。在过去的一年里，工作重点是应用统计技术来研究一种儿童疾病，注意力缺陷/多动障碍(ADHD)，以及两种与衰老有关的神经疾病，肌萎缩侧索硬化症(ALS)和帕金森氏病。我还协助设计和分析了一项临床研究，以评估新生儿饮食中大豆雌激素对其发育的荷尔蒙影响。 对于ADHD，我们在当地学区进行了一项病例对照研究，目前正在努力描述用于评估疾病状况的筛查工具的心理测量学特性。我们还估计了这个县小学生中ADHD的流行率。对于ALS，基于我们进行的病例对照研究，我们检查了可能的风险遗传修饰物，发现一些证据表明血管内皮生长因子(VEGF)基因的某些单倍型与ALS风险增加有关。帕金森氏病研究的规划和前期工作已经完成，现场数据收集工作正在进行中。大豆雌激素对新生儿发育影响的初步研究现在已经走出了这一领域，分析正在开始。我们正在使用改良的Ballard分级法、可能对雌激素敏感的器官的超声图像和激素水平来检查发育的物理标志。

This project seeks to develop new statistical techniques for problems in human development and to apply existing techniques to those problems in novel ways. In the past year, work focused on applications of statistical techniques to study a disease of childhood, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and two neurological diseases of aging, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's disease. I have also assisted in the design and analysis of a clinical study to assess the hormonal effects of soy estrogen in the diets of neonates on their development. For ADHD, we have carried out a case-control study in a local school district and are currently working on describing the psychometric properties of the screening instruments used to assess disease status. We are also estimating ADHD prevalence among elementary school children in this county. For ALS, based on a case-control study that we conducted, we examined possible genetic modifiers of risk, finding some evidence that certain haplotypes of the vascular epithelium growth factor (VEGF)gene were associated with increased risk of ALS. The planning and preliminary work of the Parkinson's disease study is complete and field data collection is now underway. The pilot study of the effects of soy estrogen on neonatal development is now out of the field and analysis is beginning. We are examing physical markers of development using a modified Ballard scale, ultrasound images of putatively estrogen-sensitive organs, and hormone levels.