DUKE CENTER FOR GEOSPATIAL MEDICINE

描述(由申请人提供)： 尽管一个新的共识是，许多疾病受到多种基因-基因和基因-环境相互作用的影响，但关于遗传和环境因素如何相互作用影响儿童的结局，人们知之甚少。此外，尽管心理社会理论侧重于社会经济特征如何影响儿童的健康状况，但我们对社会因素如何与遗传和环境因素相互作用影响儿童福祉的信息很少。因此，解决社会、环境和遗传因素的同时和联合影响的方法势在必行。杜克大学地理空间医学中心的使命是开发系统的、基于空间的方法来分析环境、遗传和心理社会领域共同塑造儿童健康和福祉的途径。该中心的具体目标是：1)发展一个跨学科中心，支持关于遗传、环境和社会方面的脆弱性如何结合起来影响儿童健康和福祉的研究；2)促进生物医学、环境健康、统计学和社会科学项目之间的跨学科研究互动；3)提出将创新的空间分析纳入卫生研究的新方法；4)开发新的创造性分析方法，解决空间/时间变化、多重比较、混淆和效果修改；5)培训年轻学者使用所产生的方法。我们将利用尼古拉斯环境学院、杜克大学医学中心和三一艺术与科学学院之间的积极伙伴关系。我们将使用先进的空间统计方法，结合遗传学和基因组学技术，将社会、环境和遗传脆弱性联系起来。使用神经管缺陷作为健康终点的原型，我们将开发一个通用框架，将这些方法应用于各种健康终点，包括自闭症、哮喘、ADHD和肥胖症。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite an emerging consensus that many diseases are influenced by multiple gene-gene and gene-environment interactions, little is known about how genetic and environmental factors interact to influence outcomes in children. In addition, although psychosocial theory focuses on how socio-economic characteristics influence the health status of children, we have little information about how social factors interact with genetic and environmental factors to affect child well-being. Thus, methods to address the simultaneous and combined influence of social, environmental, and genetic factors are imperative. The mission of Duke's Center for Geospatial Medicine is to develop systematic, spatially-based methods for analyzing the pathways through which the environment, genetic, and psychosocial domains jointly shape child health and well-being. Specific goals of this Center are to: 1) develop an interdisciplinary center that supports research on how genetic, environmental, and social aspects of vulnerability combine to affect children's health and well-being; 2) promote interdisciplinary research interactions among programs in biomedicine, environmental health, statistics, and social sciences; 3) advance new methodologies for incorporating innovative spatial analysis into health research; 4) develop new and creative analytic approaches that address spatial/temporal variation, multiple comparisons, confounding, and effect modification; 5) train young scholars in the resulting methods. We will leverage active partnerships among the Nicholas School of the Environment, the Duke University Medical Center, and Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. We will link social, environmental, and genetic vulnerability using advanced spatial statistical approaches in combination with techniques from genetics and genomics. Using neural tube defects as a prototype health endpoint, we will develop a generalized framework for applying these methods to a wide variety of health endpoints, including autism, asthma, ADHD, and obesity.