The Data Management and Analysis Core (DMAC) plays a critical role in achieving the Center objectives by serving as a central repository of Center data and providing for cross-indexing and linkage of the diverse data sets produced by the environmental and biomedical projects and cores in the Center. The current PROTECT Database System holds nearly 7 million cleaned and secure data entities. The DMAC is responsible for the reliability of the data, including cleaning, replication and backup, as well as the protection of the data, including de-identification of human subjects, and secure and authenticated access. The DMAC allows data generated by the projects to be cross-indexed by all projects based on a global PROTECT Data Dictionary that includes common index fields (subject ID, GIS coordinates) to foster sharing and integration. DMAC also provides a rich set of modeling and statistical analysis toolsets and expertise to support Project-level objectives. The combined collection of data and tools allows PROTECT to work seamlessly across project domains and effectively ties environmental factors to human subject outcomes. To support Center goals and ensure its long-term impact, we will continue to build upon the rich infrastructure developed in the first eight years of this Center. We will continue to partner with EarthSoft, a major provider of environmental data management software, to provide enhanced database capabilities appropriate for all Center projects and cores. We will continue to support cleaning, indexing, documenting, and security of all Center-based data through a secure, online, database system, as well as provide a common suite of advanced statistical/analysis tools integrated into the backend of the database system. As part of the renewal, we will expand our analytics support by adding Jennifer Dy, Justin Manjourides and Bhramar Mukherjee to the DMAC, supporting machine learning and statistical analysis of mixtures that include phthalates, chlorinated volatile organic compounds (CVOCs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), metals and pesticides across all projects. We will expand our use of mapping with a Geographic Information System (GIS), integrating analytics and mapping into a common framework, making our data easily understood by a wide range of communities. To achieve our Center-level aims that tie environmental factors to health-related outcomes, the DMAC will continue to develop a common suite of analysis and visualization tools based on GIS, SAS, R and Python, providing analysis tailored for each project, while also leveraging state-of-the-art software and frameworks. The specific statistical tools developed for mixtures analysis will use RStudio?s data cleaning, visualization and archiving functions, and will be disseminated through GitHub. The DMAC already has developed a suite of Data Mining tools that provide regression and clustering analysis in an integrated online visualization framework. Finally, we will work closely with the Community Engagement Core and the Training cores to provide education on data analysis, and to support data reporting and communication of results.
The Data Management and Analysis Core (DMAC) plays a critical role in the efficient and secure transmission, storage, cleaning, harmonization, management, sharing, analysis and dissemination of biomedical and environmental data collected and analyzed across the PROTECT center. The DMAC provides software- engineered user-friendly analytic tools and automated pipelines to address the needs of the projects and other cores in PROTECT, and enables cross-project collaboration through data integration and harmonization, and effectively accommodates the growing volume and velocity of data collection. Effective study design, data management and analysis are key components to efficiently understanding the impact of environmental contamination on adverse pregnancy outcomes across the spectrum of research, training and community engagement activities in PROTECT.
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