Andrew Fine, MD, MPH is a pediatric emergency medicine specialist committed to a research career in public health informatics and medical decision sciences. His goal is develop methods to infuse epidemiological context into medical decision making and improve the lives of individual children and the public health. A K01 award from CDC will build upon a strong foundation in epidemiology, biostatistics and public health, and provide advanced education, skills, mentorship and experience through a multidisciplinary team of experts and advisors and the outstanding resources available at Harvard University. Valuable skills will be gained in mathematical modeling of surveillance data streams and other types of epidemiological context into clinical prediction models. Through rapid advances in health information technology, electronic health records and emerging personally controlled health records, opportunities are now present to incorporate epidemiological context into medical decision making. The proposed research will examine approaches to building models that incorporate local trends and help guide rational testing for diseases of great public health importance. In the translation of research into practice, clinicians and patients will receive decision support based on a prediction model that incorporates local disease incidence and other epidemiological context. From this pilot data, hypotheses will be generated to serve as the basis of a randomized trial in an R01 application. The applicant's environment provides a unique setting in which to develop the skills necessary to become an inter-disciplinary researcher who can bridge public health informatics and medical decision sciences.
