This ongoing training program prepares graduate students and postdoctoral fellows for biostatistical and epidemiological research directed against the HIV epidemic. The program emphasizes strong training in statistical methodology, epidemiology, and related biologic areas. Students majoring in Biostatistics minor in Epidemiology and vice versa. Strong courses are also available in related fields such as virology, biology, health policy, population sciences, or behavioral science. The overall objective of the training program is to combine strong methodologic training with an extensive practical exposure to relevant problems and an introduction to specialized research on problems important to combating the HIV epidemic. The presence of expertise in virology, microbiology, and health care issues at the School adds to the unique environment for this training program. The Biostatistics and Epidemiology faculties are extensively involved in methodologic and collaborative research in HIV-related problems. Members of the Biostatistics Department form the Statistical Center for the AIDS Clinical Trials Group within the Center for Biostatistics in AIDS Research, and are closely involved with the Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative. Members of the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics are jointly involved in epidemiological studies in Botswana, Tanzania, and Thailand as well as the national AIDS research program. This provides the trainees with a very rich environment to pursue their research. Further, the department houses the McGoldrick fellows program where a small number of researchers from sub-Saharan countries (Uganda, Kenya, Botswana, Malawi and South Africa, initially) spend a term in the department being introduced to modern research methods in biostatistics and epidemiology as applied to HIV/AIDS. Interaction with these McGoldrick fellows provides students on this Training Grant a more global perspective. To facilitate student participation in these research activities, the Department of Biostatistics sponsors faculty- wide working groups which meet biweekly to discuss ongoing research. During the 2013-2014 academic year, there are separate working groups in adaptive trials, big data, causal inference, computational biology, brain health, environmental statistics, HIV, neurostatistics, quantitative genomics, and quantitative issues in cancer research.

Public Health Relevance

The impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has been devastating for almost half a century ago, especially in the developing world. Wonderful advances have been made in treating the disease, but there is still much work that needs to be done in controlling, preventing and treating the disease. This grant is requesting funds to train biostatisticians and epidemiologists to continue to contribute in a coordinated fight against this virus on all fronts, from prevention and education to treatment.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Type
Institutional National Research Service Award (T32)
Project #
5T32AI007358-28
Application #
9060748
Study Section
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Research Review Committee (AIDS)
Program Officer
Lawrence, Diane M
Project Start
1989-09-01
Project End
2019-06-30
Budget Start
2016-07-01
Budget End
2017-06-30
Support Year
28
Fiscal Year
2016
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Harvard University
Department
Biostatistics & Other Math Sci
Type
Schools of Public Health
DUNS #
149617367
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
Mattie, Heather; Engø-Monsen, Kenth; Ling, Rich et al. (2018) Understanding tie strength in social networks using a local ""bow tie"" framework. Sci Rep 8:9349
Lok, Judith J; Yang, Shu; Sharkey, Brian et al. (2018) Estimation of the cumulative incidence function under multiple dependent and independent censoring mechanisms. Lifetime Data Anal 24:201-223
Correia, Katharine; Williams, Paige L (2018) Estimating the Relative Excess Risk Due to Interaction in Clustered-Data Settings. Am J Epidemiol 187:2470-2480
Marino, Miguel; Pagano, Marcello (2018) Role of survey response rates on valid inference: an application to HIV prevalence estimates. Emerg Themes Epidemiol 15:6
Fulcher, Isabel R; Tchetgen Tchetgen, Eric J; Williams, Paige L (2017) Mediation Analysis for Censored Survival Data Under an Accelerated Failure Time Model. Epidemiology 28:660-666
Correia, Katharine; Williams, Paige L (2017) A hierarchical modeling approach for assessing the safety of exposure to complex antiretroviral drug regimens during pregnancy. Stat Methods Med Res :962280217732597
Xie, Wen; Agniel, Denis; Shevchenko, Andrey et al. (2017) Genome-Wide Analyses Reveal Gene Influence on HIV Disease Progression and HIV-1C Acquisition in Southern Africa. AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses 33:597-609
Hermetet-Lindsay, Katrina D; Correia, Katharine F; Williams, Paige L et al. (2017) Contributions of Disease Severity, Psychosocial Factors, and Cognition to Behavioral Functioning in US Youth Perinatally Exposed to HIV. AIDS Behav 21:2703-2715
Lee, Kennedy-Shaffer (2017) When the Alpha is the Omega: P-Values, ""Substantial Evidence,"" and the 0.05 Standard at FDA. Food Drug Law J 72:595-635
Balzer, Laura; Staples, Patrick; Onnela, Jukka-Pekka et al. (2017) Using a network-based approach and targeted maximum likelihood estimation to evaluate the effect of adding pre-exposure prophylaxis to an ongoing test-and-treat trial. Clin Trials 14:201-210

Showing the most recent 10 out of 97 publications