UVM Clinical and Translational Science (CTS)

From the Economist says about pragmatic data collection on human beings

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 15:58:00 +0000

Couldn't resist this article; it's been hanging around my desk for a few months and it still makes me smile. In a world where there is a lot to be grateful for, know that you can ethically study what happens when people make, let's say, not ideal choices regarding their health.

Copied from The Economist, Sept 6 2025 issue in their Science & Technology section:

How to study people who are very drunk - Naturalistic experiments are all the rage

Sep 3rd 2025|5 min read

Visitors to Minnesota’s state fair in 2024 could hear live music, enjoy white-knuckle rides and compete to make the best tinned goods. They could also get drunk. And if they did, a team of neuroscientists from the local university was waiting to gently torture them.

The researchers were on site to test how well alcohol can numb pain. Although booze’s analgesic effect has been understood for centuries, experts did not know if it continued or tailed off with greater consumption. Testing either hypothesis in a controlled trial, where guidelines limit how much a subject can be asked to consume, is difficult. “Ethically, we can’t ask people to drink alcohol to levels they do in their day-to-day lives,” says Jeff Boissoneault of the Minnesota Alcohol and Pain lab.

That is why he and his colleagues went to the fair. The experiment they conducted, the results of which were published earlier this year in Addictive Behaviours, a journal, is an example of a naturalistic study: one freed from the constraints of clinical trials to better simulate day-to-day experiences and behaviours. Such studies are often quicker and cheaper than laboratory trials, and can yield important insights into how people act outside of clinical settings. They have been around for decades, but are currently enjoying a boom in the fields of neuroscience and psychology. The benefits could be felt widely.

Covid-19 is in part responsible for the boom, says Nehal Vadhan, a clinical psychologist at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in New York. “Many labs had to learn how to collect data in a remote fashion, which then naturally leads to a more naturalistic approach,” he says.

Researchers are also increasingly making use of real-world data gathered for other purposes. These data-sets, usually collected under naturalistic conditions, are on a scale beyond most controlled trials. In 2024 Dr Vadhan and his colleagues published the results of a naturalistic study that checked how well an online programme reduced problem drinking in more than 46,000 people. After three months, average weekly consumption dropped by a third. Few smartphone and online self-help apps have their claims checked in this way, he notes, and certainly not at such scale.

Fair game

Convenience and size are not the only benefits of naturalistic studies. Scientists are keen to study the effects of all sorts of common behaviour that is unethical or illegal, as well as harmful to health. Dr Vadhan has started a study to collect the experiences of people who take recreational drugs including ecstasy and LSD, which can be done without the permissions and paperwork of a more formal trial.

The Minnesota state-fair study also took advantage of this freedom. Whereas review boards in America typically limit alcohol consumption to the drink-driving threshold of 0.08 grams of alcohol per decilitre of blood, Dr Boissoneault and his colleagues tested 149 people with levels up to 0.15—the point beyond which they felt proper consent was hard to establish. The results revealed pain tolerance rose with alcohol levels, which will help public-health researchers model how people with chronic pain use alcohol as a self-administered anaesthetic, says Dr Boissoneault.

The study of hangovers is another area ripe for naturalistic studies. One test carried out in the Netherlands, the results of which were published in 2023, studied people after evenings when their blood-alcohol levels were estimated to have risen above 0.2. That is a level associated with severe impairment of hearing, motor skills, speech and vision, and one likely beyond the ethical approval of a review board anywhere in the world. (The study’s chief finding was that a fortunate few seem not to experience the negative effects of hangovers no matter how much they drink.)

Yet it is not only intoxicants that are of interest. The neurological effects of more everyday triggers are also being studied. Some researchers are scanning the brains of people as they watch films including “Back to the Future” and “Pulp Fiction”, because they are thought to trigger emotional responses that better reflect people’s encounters in the real world.

Such studies, which may help paint a better picture of people’s emotional and cognitive responses to real-world events, had been considered too uncontrolled to test specific hypotheses, says Chris Buckland, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Queensland. Films build suspense, for example, with a combination of lighting, music, dialogue and facial expressions. In a controlled test of how people respond to suspense, these stimuli would need to be whittled down to just one that could be varied in an experiment.

But, says Mr Buckland, the field is starting to acknowledge that chaos is a part of life. In January he published his own contribution in Journal of Pain: a collection of images of people’s faces showing pleasure and agony, for use in cognitive research on recognising states of arousal. Unlike many previous efforts that used expressions posed by actors, this database uses pictures captured from YouTube videos and shows real people celebrating, as well as moments they suffer genuine—and therefore impossible to ethically replicate—injuries and emotional distress.

He hopes the new database could be used to train artificial-intelligence models to better recognise pain-related facial expressions in hospitals. If nothing else, it will allow algorithms to grapple with factors such as differing image quality, lighting, colour and viewing angles—wrinkles that would be ironed out of most data-sets. Increasing the experimental realism of a study in this way also introduces noise, says Mr Buckland, which means that more trials and examples are needed than usual to test and prove an idea. The eventual insights, however, might be worth it.

https://www.economist.com/

New study from MacLean, van Eeghen, and others

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Littenberg) — Tue, 13 May 2025 00:11:00 +0000

Congrats to Charlie MacLean and Connie van Eeghen for this new work from the Dartmouth Co-op!

A Pilot Comparison of Clinical Data Collection Methods Using Paper, Electronic Health Record Prompt, and a Smartphone Application

Meagan E. Stabler, John M. Westfall, Donald E. Nease, Jr., Jennifer Raymond, Bruce Jobse, Zoe Daudier, Laurie Emanuele, Elisabeth Wilson, Maureen Boardman, Neil Korsen, Charles D. MacLean, Constance van Eeghen, Paula S. Hudon and Timothy E. Burdick

J Am Board Fam Med January-February 2025; 38:46-55; doi:10.3122/jabfm.2024.240199R1

http://www.jabfm.org/content/38/1/46.abstract

Research in CTS (formerly CROW) Meeting: April 4, 2025

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 17:00:00 +0000

Present:    Olivia Garrow, Emily Houston, Amanda Kennedy, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Emma Rose McCadden, Gail Rose, Liliane Savard, Connie van Eeghen (9)

1.    Warm Up: Mountain biking is so good!
2.    Emma Rose McCadden-Vt Dev Disabilities Services: Conflict Free System of Care – evaluation of policy
a.    Dept of Disability is part of AHS: coordinates services with developmental and intellectual disabilities
i.    Funding is through Medicaid waivers
ii.    15 agencies throughout the state: 10 Designated Agencies and 5 special agencies
b.    Past concern: Conflict of Interest across agencies to ensure there is free choice, quality and outcome measures, fiduciary relationship for those who hold the funds and use the funds to deliver services
c.    In 2014: mandated to mitigate potential CoIs at DVSD
i.    Onboarding new Case Management organizations so that fund holder and service delivery are different organizations
ii.    Now in compliance with Medicaid
d.    Emma’s assignment: measure impact of transition to conflict free environment on the beneficiaries
i.    Aim 1: measure changes in access to care and health outcomes; evaluate shifts in percention in service Q and self determinations
1.    Seamless care
2.    Shared management
ii.    Aim 2: measure gaps
e.    Design: mixed methods
i.    Quant: surveys, pre/post, on perceptions of care, percentage of engagement in shared management
ii.    Qual: pre/post interviews to explore experience
1.    Tandem study: provider experience
f.    Sampling: No language exclusion criteria, which is tricky
i.    Surveys created to include communication liaisons
ii.    Trialed, before and after transitions
iii.    Outcomes on existing pathways, plus Green Mountain Self Advocate Group to make sure they are included
g.    Surveys
i.    Patient perception of patient centeredness
ii.    Medicaid existing HC systems and providers survey – all 15 agencies pre change
h.    Qualitative data will follow Caring About Me framework
i.    Data analysis
i.    Descriptive
ii.    Between provider findings
iii.    Pre/Post analysis
iv.    Qualitative themes
j.    Reported
i.    Annual report in 2026 and shared with professional and regulatory groups
ii.    Shared with advocates: Green Mountain Self Advocates
k.    Discussion
i.    How to ensure that pre/post populations are the same and are matchable. Agencies are the usual contact point for accessing individuals
ii.    The balance between accuracy and inclusion
iii.    Process of recruitment of patients through agencies: Randomization across tiers, case management organizations, utilization of services received, and demographics. Consider asking agencies for full lists of clientele. There are 3500 patients; hoping for 700-800 respondents.
l.    Research question: how does the transition change the experiences and outcomes of the patients?
i.    Consider coding in terms of experiences, and/or Medicaid’s objectives (e.g. shared decision making), and/or quality of care framework
ii.    Emma will recruit coders from the quality review team in her department.

Recorded by: CvE

Research in CTS (formerly CROW) Meeting: March 27, 2025

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 15:56:00 +0000

Present:    Nancy Gell, Amanda Kennedy, Juvena Hitt, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Gail Rose, Liliane Savard, Connie van Eeghen (8)

1.    Warm Up: Hard to avoid current events and there is good work to do.
2.    Follow up on Liliane’s presentation from last week.
a.    Liliane had her interview; it went well. Thanks from Liliane for all the support from the group last week.
b.    Liliane is continuing to move her dissertation full speed ahead. She has other options in the form of post-docs and scholarships to consider, both here and in Canada.
3.    Ben is working with Jen Oshita: analyzing the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS population weighted survey) re: disability
a.    Includes mortality data for 2009-2019; COVID years are scrambled and unfinished
b.    Studying relationship between presence of disability and mortality (known to have a positive correlation)
i.    Does cause of death have a relationship with disability?
c.    Liliane: availability of data set from China on medical errors and mortality
d.    Ben is learning about “decomposition models” which distributes the association of multiple variables with an outcome using secondary data.
e.    Liliane: possibility for linkage with suicidality
4.    Connie has an upcoming manuscript on opioid prescribing patterns for the Journal of Pain
a.    Next step is NIDA grant opportunity
b.    What are the other opportunities for funding, from corporate or private foundations?
5.    Jerry working on orals: having fun with it!
6.    Gail: past talk (3 weeks ago) for Integrative Medicine and Health on group health coaching conducted at UVM for past 3 years in Seattle. New organization, developing its research abilities and excited about new ideas. Gail was actually not 100% friendly and nice in order to help participants do science well. (Yay, Gail!)
7.    As a group, keeping each other informed about work and opportunities is valuable and important.

Recorded by: CvE

Research in CTS (formerly CROW) Meeting: March 20, 2025

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 01:34:00 +0000

Present: Nancy Gell, Amanda Kennedy, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Liliane Savard, Connie van Eeghen (10)

1. Warm Up: Opportunities for showing up and reflecting what is important

2. Presentation by Liliane as a recruitment/new hire for a DPT program with research focus

a. Self-disclosure: not autistic

b. Autism overview

i. Double empathy problem: discomfort and barriers on both sides

c. PCORI EW awards for two projects:

i. Transition from pediatric to adult healthcare

ii. Increasing capacity for autism research

d. Explanation of the research process and outcomes for each project (used 2 websites to share)

i. Transition project: literature review

1. Careful work in identifying the different meanings of what was learned

2. Identified gaps in the research: where to go next

ii. Capacity project: two training programs

1. Identified four key learning needs?

2. Developed training collaboratively

a. Participatory research

b. Working together – creating a more welcoming space

e. Dissertation project: motor learning

i. What is known about autism

ii. Few motor learning intervention trials, esp. with more impaired children

iii. Missing important details for reproducibility

iv. Priorities in her research: age appropriate, tolerable measurement method, instruction delivery, assessment of feasibility and acceptability

v. Recruitment: feasibility, acceptability

vi. This study focused on internal vs external motivation on performance.

1. A lot of variation in response to the intervention; no effect

2. Need more support for motivation

vii. Next steps

1. Motor learning

2. First person report of motor control experiences

3. Movement signatures

4. Movement initiation: motor control and executive function

5. Intervention: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, social motor groups (in addition to motor learning)

6. Also: Gap between intention and action, plus many more issues, including design of communication designs, joint hypermobility, exercise intolerance, pain and addiction, role of physical activity, connection between autoimmune markers and neuroplasticity

3. Feedback

a. Think about the 3 ways you plan to contribute to the research mission of the organization you are applying to

i. What is your vision

ii. How does your current work support that vision

iii. Next steps to support that vision: include plan to apply for grants and to publish

b. What makes you (the investigator) helpful to the institution’s mission

i. High level review of research and publications

ii. Collaborators at the institution you would work with

iii. Funding sources

c. What’s your story, make it the thread

i. What are the three things that you want people to remember about your lead study

1. Who you are and the work you do

2. What your plan is to move your work forward

d. Assume that technology will fail; keep all the content in a single PPT

e. Let the CV cover the details; focus on what your want people to remember about you and your work

Recorded by: CvE

Research in CTS (formerly CROW) Meeting: August 1, 2024

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 15:45:00 +0000

Present: Amanda Kennedy, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Gail Rose, Connie van Eeghen (6)

1. Warm Up:

a. Dissertation committee planning – sooner is better than later

2. D&I and Equity – Jerry Landau: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7977499/

i. Jerry has come to D&I gradually, as he has worked with the Comprehensive Pain Program, and trying to grapple with “feasibility”

1. Summer independent study on Brownson text, Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health: Translating Science to Practice 3rd Edition, see https://www.amazon.com/Dissemination-Implementation-Research-Health-Translating/dp/019766069X/ref=asc_df_019766069X/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=692875362841&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1656788153007457778&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9002887&hvtargid=pla-2281435181698&psc=1&mcid=5260f94c155b361391fa87c8c2960f9b&hvocijid=1656788153007457778-019766069X-&hvexpln=73&gad_source=1

2. With all the shortcomings of integrating equity into science, how do we do that in a balanced way, with all the other important things included as well?

ii. Ben started in Technology Assessment (the better mousetrap model, some degree true with the asthma study, and helpful to marginalized people). Does a rising tide raise all boats equally or are the rich person’s boat raised more than others?

1. HPV vaccination is taken up by the rich world, not so much by the poorer world

2. Innovations are difficult, including de-implementation of a past innovation; it takes 30 years to reflect a new innovation in text books (beta blockers for heart attacks)

3. We wondered if the scientific method can be applied to implementation; a little better but still doesn’t work unless you have access to resources/opportunities

4. Are the structural issues outside of health care: education, life style… ? Is equity about solving social problems.

a. Can we even tackle these problems?

b. Phil Aides could set up cardiac rehab but could not get people of low income to come

c. Is the behavioral bar misrepresenting factors that are really outside the choice of the individual, e.g. living in a food desert? Our urbanized environment?

iii. Social medicine has been around for ~100 years. Who is in charge?

1. Brownson suggests that Implementation Science can fix these problems.

iv. This article was written when COVID was raging and social unrest was rolling through the US.

1. The buzz on this issue has dwindled; what parts of this topic should we grab and retain

2. Ben knew Debra Haire-Joshu; she was good at knowing were the focus of research is currently pointed

v. Should we be doing anything differently

1. Collaborate with those who can help us see and understand differently: leaders, team members, stakeholders

2. How do we do research on policy as a pre-test – it either gets implemented or it doesn’t

a. Is VT the perfect experimental sandbox?

3. Could we use Enola Proctor’s implementation outcomes (acceptable, appropriate, affordable, feasible…) might be measures we can use as resarchers

4. We tend to study highly compliant participants; compliance may not be consistent with equity

a. Efficacy: compliance is essential

b. Effectiveness: compliance is a goal but not a requirement; the question is what are the factors affecting compliance

5. Where do we want to be on the CTS spectrum?

3. Next meeting: August 8, 2024

Recorded by: CvE

Research in CTS (formerly CROW) Meeting: July 11, 2024

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 16:36:00 +0000

Present: Nancy Gell, Emily Houston, Amanda Kennedy, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Gail Rose, Liliane Savard, Alan Sprouse-Blum, Connie van Eeghen (9)

1. Warm Up:

a. Rain, rain, rain

2. Cell to Society – how to help non-CTS students apply the CTS Framework – Connie van Eeghen

a. Why this question

b. What is The CTS Framework

c. Spectrum of CTS

d. NCATs version

e. CTR

f. The difference between TS and TR

g. The problem again

h. Sample schedule of guests and readings

i. Can this course transition from a conversation about a virus to a conversation about the CTS spectrum? Yes

ii. Is the language too technical?

1. Research and development

2. New products and services

3. What is shown is not clearly a continuum but separate items with connections

a. Double headed arrows between each box?

iii. Some course themes are easier to use to communicate the CTS framework

1. This is an artificial construct: not the real world

2. It does “divide and conquer” which is artificial but useful

3. Maybe the question isn’t “where does this fit” but “how does this fit in every box”?

4. It is necessary to talk about the complexity of this process; simple examples are helpful

5. After each speaker, take the time to fit what was said into the CTS spectrum

a. What questions come up for you

b. Where do they fit into the spectrum

c. How does that fit into your own interests and work

d. It’s never about just one work

iv. Start each example with a simple example: vaccine development, different for each course (are there any simple examples)

1. ~~Azithromycin~~

2. Mosquito DEET vs nets for malaria (how does that influence what basic science should be working on: what is happening, what can we do differently, which works best, how to deliver, and how can we spread this everywhere)

3. Yellow fever

4. Cooling centers and shade blocks in inner city

5. Others TBD…

i. Future semesters

i. Pick a single theme within climate change? Or keep it a broad net, for more chances to engage to students’ own work

3. Next meeting: July 19, 2024: Emily Houston on a topic related to her work

Recorded by: CvE

On visualizing data - quick example

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 15:29:00 +0000

I found this delightful visual on why we should always take our time to visualize our data, rather than just stare at tables, in this quick link:

https://x.com/pickover/status/1810099446161547326

For your summer reading moment to smile... Connie

Research in CTS (formerly CROW) Meeting: March 6, 2024

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 17:06:00 +0000

Present: Juvena Hitt, Emily Houston, Amanda Kennedy, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Charlie MacLean, Emma Rose McCadden, Gail Rose, Liliane Savard, Connie van Eeghen (10)

1. Warm Up:

a. Forbes article: overstated or not? Different opinions noted…

b. Take a look at the New England Journal of AI

c. ChatGPT4 is $20/month

i. Also a Team access: $25/month for each team member: protected from sharing with the public

ii. All other material becomes public property for training the LLM, as with everything else that is on the Internet

iii. ChatGPT4 has image generation; version 3 does not

2. How to use AI in research

a. Journal’s are requiring disclosure

i. Liliane discovered that she could replicate a paragraph in a manuscript by asking ChatGPT for the same thing, including citations (which she needs to check out)

b. Use as a writing coach

i. Prompt: “How would you write this in the context of that”

ii. Helpful in generating outlines

iii. Can provide writers’ feedback, instead of going to a writing center

iv. Know its limits: hallucinations in an authoritative tone

c. There is skill in developing prompts

i. COURSERA: https://www.coursera.org/learn/generative-ai-for-everyone

d. NIH: NIH study section peer reviewers may not use AI: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-23-149.html

e. Use for creating an abstract from a previously written manuscript, or a lay language summary

f. Scholar GPT will access PubMed and other scholarly sources, e.g. “write a paragraph about Bayesian statistics and why medical journal editors are not fond of tis type of analysis. Please include citations and references.”

3. For developing a poster: develop a poster, attach two files – and see what you get! (But cannot use proprietary software, like PPT)

a. Trial of creating an academic conference ready for submission poster based on a previously published article: result was a bit hallucinatory

b. Google “how to create a poster with ChatGPT”: result was a marketing poster

4. Many other uses: not completely accurate but a great starting point

a. A spreadsheet of the 251 towns in VT

b. Assessment of patient stories: do they need a hip replacement or a banister for their stairs?

c. The development of trust in how we use this new tool, and how we talk about setting expectations and the transparency of its use

d. AI guidance on behavioral management of ADHD: https://goblin.tools/ - describes all the tasks of a possibly overwhelming project

5. Next meeting: March 14, 2024: write a paragraph using ChatGPT 3.5 (OpenSource); make sure it is a writing product that is valuable to you. Scrutinize the result; don’t make any assumptions.

Recorded by: CvE

FW: EPSCoR Live! ~ Open Science Session

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Littenberg) — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 16:45:00 +0000

Dear Colleagues,

The U.S. National Science Foundation Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) team is excited to announce the third EPSCoR Live! event (formerly known as EPSCoR Office Hours) of 2024.

When : Wednesday, March 13, 2024 from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EDT).

Audience for March 13^th Session : This EPSCoR Live! will be of particular interest to researchers and leaders within research administration in EPSCoR jurisdictions , who would like to learn more about the topic of open science.

Summary of Topic: In this session, Dr. Martin Halbert and other NSF staff will discuss the emerging landscape of open science, including upcoming federal public access mandates and related open science matters. Their discussion will be followed by a Q&A session.

How to Attend: Advance registration is required. Register here to receive the Zoom link for the session. Please use an institutional email address for registration.

How to Submit Questions: EPSCoR Live! participants are encouraged to submit questions in advance through the registration form or by sending an email to epscor-live@nsf.gov . ?

While real-time captioning will be available, requests for additional accommodations may be sent to epscor-live@nsf.gov by Wednesday, March 6.

If you missed previous events or would like to review past presentations, please visit our EPSCoR Live! webpage .?

We would be grateful if you could also forward this message to faculty and other PIs within your institution who might be interested and invite them to sign up here for our mailing list to receive notifications of events (such as EPSCoR Live!) and solicitations from EPSCoR.

Regards,

The NSF EPSCoR Team

How to find great funding opportunities - posted from Emily Houston's email

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:22:00 +0000

Emily put together the following list that could help many of us - thank you, Emily!

Last week we talked about locating funding opportunities for our projects, and here are a few links to the website mentioned:

grants.gov -the federal government's central resource for funding opportunities

Pivot-RP (proquest.com) -federal and private funding database; you can create an account to save searches

Candid | Foundation Center and GuideStar are now Candid -philanthropic grants

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/WeeklyIndexMobile.cfm?WeekEnding=02-02-2024 -subscribe to receive NIH-funding weekly updates

https://www.uvm.edu/ovpr/resdev -UVM Research Development website and location to subscribe to their weekly funding opportunities email

UVMMC Fund Grant Program (sharepoint.com) -You may need a medical center account to access this, but currently there are two UVMMC grants open for applications, a $10-25K one and a $25-100K grant.

Home | RePORT (nih.gov) -Curious what has been funded federally? This website includes abstracts of funded research, the funding opportunity announcement, names of the PIs, how much was awarded, and the study section that reviewed the grant proposal.

Research in CTS (formerly CROW) Meeting: February 8, 2024

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 17:11:00 +0000

Present: Emily Houston, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Charlie MacLean, Gail Rose, Connie van Eeghen (6)

1. Warm Up:

a. Warm days ahead already!

2. Group discussion on how to find funding

a. Emily’s favorite funding searches for graduate students

i. Pivot.proquest.com: create an account, save searches, save options that are interesting. Gail has used it to create a profile that will send options every week, but much is not relevant. Nancy knows it taps into foundation funding and smaller opportunities to support dissertation work.

ii. Grants.gov for NIH opps

iii. Candid.org includes Gates Foundation and other private foundations

b. Weekly NIH TOC listserve

i. Also NIH RePORTER to see what has been funded in the past

ii. ClinicalTrials.gov

c. Internal UVM Office of Research listserve

i. Their website indicates the number of grants they’ve helped support

d. Emily received an investigator initiated award through private company

e. Charlie: available awards through https://www.med.uvm.edu/nne-ctr/funding/PPP . Charlie and Connie have one currently ongoing. One award each year must go to a PBRN based study for primary care practice based research. This is funded through MaineHealth (no medical site but site for Tufts, partner with U Southern Maine, have a research institute). Dartmouth has applied for a full CTSA to conduct additional work. It really helps to have relationships across institutions to build partnerships in developing grant ideas. Rural partners are an asset.

f. Nancy: found collaborator for NCI grant through lit search and cold call. Targeted Louisiana because needed racial diversity; reviewer comment came back to focus on racial diversity in New England.

g. Charlie: NNE CTR PBRN is in a system of PBRNs that can help recruit from more diverse, and therefore more generalizable, parts of the country.

h. Emily: any collaboration outside the country, such as McGill. Charlie: study on “pre-habilitation” to do rehabilitation work before surgery; resulted in a Grand Rounds talk. Also worked on de-prescribing: helpful but not resulting in funding, as funders differ widely in methods of funding that don’t apply across international boundaries. This allows researchers to pivot quickly; our system takes a long time to operate. Ben: K awards are like that, but don’t cover lab and other research expenses.

i. Jerry: goal is to start small smaller projects. Will follow up on the suggestions above.

j. Ben: two strategies

i. Find opportunities that the funder is promoting

ii. Create own proposal and find a funder

iii. Lesson: don’t spend all your time on pleasing the funder

k. Emily: her dissertation has had funding and, although taking longer than planned, is getting to the end. Her section has continuous funding and allows for some independent work.

3. Next meeting: Feb 15 2024, topic TBD

Recorded by: CvE

Research in CTS (formerly CROW) Meeting: January 25, 2024

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 16:58:00 +0000

Present: Juvena Hitt, Amanda Kennedy, Ben Littenberg, Liliane Savard, Connie van Eeghen (5)

1. Warm Up:

a. Amanda: How to revitalize CROW – make mandatory for research students

b. Ben attended NNE CTR webinar on Team Science, with some strategies:

i. Restate the group’s values

ii. Restate the research question

iii. Attempts at communication, such as weekly newsletter

c. Connie: interest in reviving past IBH-PC qualitative study related to Team Science

2. Bedard, What Would It Mean for Scientists to Listen to Patients, New Yorker 2024

a. Amazing that you can make news by being respectful to patients

b. How do you start to revise the culture of medical care to support better relationships

i. Why are doctors bad at this? Well, car mechanics and lawyers are too

c. IBH-PC measured empathy and patient-centeredness; positive association with high integration

i. Dan Mullin: 1) PCPs with colocated BH providers are more likely to explore, acknowledge, and encourage patient disclosure of emotionally charged content when they are confident of their ability to connect a patient to a 1-1 encounter with a BH provider should more complex needs arise.

ii. 2) When BH providers practice collaboratively with PCPs there are opportunities for BH providers to model verbal and non-verbal behaviors that communicate empathy. This modeling and learning may help PCPs to strength their ability to respond empathically when they are confronted with a challenging patient encounter.

iii. 3) Collaborative, inter-professional practice necessarily expands the range of biopsychosocial concerns that both BH and medical providers are aware of. When a BH provider practices alongside a PCP they gain greater appreciation for the impact of medical concerns on psychosocial wellbeing. Likewise, when a medical provider provides care of patients in collaboration with a BH provider the PCP gains a greater understanding of the impact of psychosocial phenomena (trauma, addiction, grief, depression) on medical conditions and the treatment of medical conditions.

d. All PCPs want to do a good job but EBP is like an onion: the more you peel back, the more you cry and the more it stinks

i. Listening to patients is a known EBP

e. Excerpt: “Last year, investigators from the RECOVER Initiative, a government-sponsored Long COVID research effort, proposed a carefully modelled framework that identified twelve symptoms frequently associated with the disease. They published their results in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in an article filled with caveats about how this work was only the first step toward deriving a more precise Long COVID definition. But some Long COVID patient-advocacy groups swiftly denounced the study, lamenting that the framework’s scoring cutoff would leave thousands of sick people without a diagnosis. One such group called the RECOVER criteria “regressive and blunt.” More than forty-two thousand people have sent letters to the N.I.H. demanding that it retract the study and its scoring system.”

i. How to deal with this?

1. Create a new term

2. Provide different categories of Long Covid, one of which includes the criteria

ii. Why didn’t RECOVER figure this out ahead of time?

1. Knew that they were leaving people out

2. Either didn’t know the pushback and/or wanted to define the entity for their own purposes

iii. Juvena was a participate in RECOVER, involving an antibody test

f. Turning a symptom/syndrome into a diagnosis is an essential step to treatment; doing that well is the difference of benefit and harm

i. How to turn gaslighting into validation/confirmation of patient experience

3. Next meeting: Feb 1 2024, topic TBD

Recorded by: CvE

Research in CTS (formerly CROW) Meeting: January 11, 2024

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 19:54:00 +0000

Present: Justine Dee, Juvena Hitt, Emily Houston, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Liliane Savard, Connie van Eeghen (7)

1. Warm Up: Liliane just moved!

2. CvE’s poster on Opioid Rx Patterns for Dartmouth CO-OP PBRN

a. Background of PBRNs, CO-OP, and NNE CTR funding

b. Charts: place 0 over gaps (or omit)

i. As report, have examples to hand out or tack to board

ii. Charts don’t clearly explain what they are

1. Feasibility usually means what the end user can do

2. Consider “Proof of concept” rather than feasibility

iii. Change Outcomes to “Outcome Examples” or “Planned Reports” – when system is operational, reports should look like this

iv. Relabel boxes: “bar graphs provide ability to see internal patterns” as illustration

1. Redundant graphs, even though different stories

2. Consider a different measure graphed, that helps elaborate a trend

3. Or a between clinic chart

4. Four graphs: MMEs within and across practices; other measures within and across practices

a. Each bar is a prescriber

b. Each bar is a practice

v. Other graphs: stacked graphs with other factors, like a dashboard for a practice

c. Flow:

i. Consider moving the green bar to the right

ii. Less words

d. Measures

i. Consider removing PEG an ORT as examples

e. Title: Feasibility study using PDMP data

i. Current is too jargony

ii. Ussing PDMP data to visualize trends in opioid prescribing – a feasibility study

f. Message:

i. Green box: preliminary data are optimistic but we need more practices to test feasibility

ii. Are practices interested in this kind of comparison, or their members

g. Stakeholders: ask for feedback

3. Next meeting: Jan 18 2024, topic TBD

Recorded by: CvE

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: Oct 19, 2023

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 15:57:00 +0000

Present: Justine Dee, Juvena Hitt, Emily Houston, Amanda Kennedy, Ben Littenberg, Charlie McLean, Jen Oshita, Liliane Savard, Adam Sprouse Blum, Connie van Eeghen (10)

1. Warm Up: UVM tech can definitely be “high need for attention” units

2. Liliane’s Healthcare Transition (HCT) Poster for the Health Equity Summit at UVM (Oct 29): Because autistic young adults have a lot of medical conditions (autoimmune conditions, musculoskeletal pain, mental health issues, obesity, depression, cardiovascular diseases, addiction and suicide to name a few) and adverse health impact, we feel that increasing awareness of internal medicine providers to the transition challenges and research needs for this population is a priority. There are 2 version of the poster and Liliane wonders which was best.

3. Discussion

a. Audience: students, clinicians, investigators, administrators; not lay group

b. Slide 1

i. More fun and engaging but wanted more structure found on Slide 2

c. Slide 2: has improved greatly

i. Photo: consider cropping out the vertical bar

1. Does it convey a message from the poster?

2. After the objective changed (below), maybe it does?

ii. Can the investigator remove extraneous words to focus and clarify meaning? Divided opinions on this.

iii. Explain what “transition” is about

iv. Objective: Identify the research gaps to improve healthcare transition for autistic youth in VT

1. Found transition models from other sources which were evaluated by VT users

2. Gaps were discussed but not identified in a structured way

3. New objective: identify attitudes towards potential approaches (not, what do they need – could be included because the focus groups were asked what was missing, which was the implementation research, as well as evaluation research done so far is not patient-centered)

4. Include stakeholders (as in Title)

v. Consider Background before Objective

vi. Several ways to trim the wording (every bit of ink, every sentence/phrase/word/punctuation/letter – if you delete it and it still makes sense, then leave it out – Ben Littenberg, 10/19023)

vii. Participation graphics

1. Move all participants graphic to bottom left, under Methods

2. Eliminate the age related graphic for autist people top right; move the information into the new bottom left graphic

d. Reflection on the funder: a substantial budget for patient centered research with a lot of demands; this is the key job of the PI: to stay with the focus of the research and still engage and partner with stakeholders

4. Schedule for rest of the month:

a. TBD

Recorded by: CvE

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: Sept 21, 2023

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 16:32:00 +0000

Present: Justine Dee, Nancy Gell, Juvena Hitt, Amanda Kennedy, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Jen Oshita, Liliane Savard, Adam Sprouse Blum, Connie van Eeghen (10)

1. Warm Up: Liliane may have sold her house! (which is why she is calling in from her car)

2. Liliane’s HCT Article and HCT Poster for the Health Equity Summit and a draft article on our healthcare transition project. The target journal is the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

a. Liliane is not too happy with the introduction so some advice on cleaning up the message here would be helpful. But the main issue is to cut it from 5800 words down to 4000.

i. Using a bird's eye view, what appears redundant or unhelpful in supporting the message around the gaps in research to address healthcare transition here in Vermont?

b. Poster:

i. A lot of text conveying many themes and subthemes; what’s most critical for your message

ii. List the 8 themes; pick one

1. Identify the actionable lessons

iii. Suggest removing the pie chart, unless needed for the audience

iv. Emphasize the message: supporting the transition is bigger than just thinking about transition. It requires training, accessibility, HC system supports… (the themes)

v. Define accessibility to include communication; consider “sensory accessibility”

vi. How does each element support HCT

vii. Use acronyms to maximize efficiency

viii. Standardize formatting; choose one or two quotes

c. Paper

i. Make the 8^th theme the conclusion – reorganize

ii. [More that the recorder missed due to a conflict!]

3. Schedule for rest of the month:

a. TBD

Recorded by: CvE

FW: Clinical Research ECHO

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Littenberg) — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 16:56:00 +0000

Not sure if this will be any good, but it has potential. FYI.

Ben

From: NNE-CTR_Members <NNE-CTR_MEMBERS@list.uvm.edu> On Behalf Of Clifford-Bova, Sheila A
Sent: Thursday, September 7, 2023 12:31 PM
To: NNE-CTR_MEMBERS@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Clinical Research ECHO

We invite you to register for the NNE-CTR Clinical Research ECHO!

Beginning its third season, the Clinical Research ECHO series focuses on all types of clinical research including investigator-initiated projects, with the goal of helping researchers access current resources, evaluate the feasibility of research ideas, and choose the appropriate research type and study design.

Sessions will occur on the fourth Wednesday of each month from 12-1pm via Zoom from September 2023-May 2024.

Topics covered this year will include qualitative research design, team science, research with special patient populations, and designing a randomized clinical trial.

This ECHO is open to all Northern New Englanders!

To register for this series, please click here https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapp.smartsheet.com%2Fb%2Fform%2Fb09f772afeea414caf1bbc207163d34e&data=05%7C01%7Csheila.clifford-bova%40med.uvm.edu%7Cfdcbb6540f674bdfe0e308dbafbea855%7Ced03ff7aba9f420480a6b226316c919d%7C0%7C0%7C638297005640496094%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=tKm7792SrKXl4V3lPBAiu59KUBlIVW5dxxQ08b6kmLg%3D&reserved=0

Brought to you by the Northern New England Clinical & Translational Research Network Professional Development and Community and Engagement Outreach Cores via MaineHealth Project ECHO.

CME credits are available!

Clinical Research ECHO HUB Team

Ivette Emery, MaineHealth

Kimberley Luebbers, University of Vermont Carrie Sullivan, MaineHealth Nancy Kaplan, University of Vermont

For more information, contact Meredith Oestreicher at Meredith.Oestreicher@MaineHealth.org

Project ECHO® (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is a forum for delivering high-quality specialty care to underserved communities. Through monthly Zoom sessions on a variety of specialty care topics, members connect for didactic presentations and case discussions.

Sheila Clifford-Bova

NNE-CTR Administrative Program Manager

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: July 13, 2023

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 16:11:00 +0000

Present: Justine Dee, Nancy Gell, Juvena Hitt, Amanda Kennedy, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Jen Oshita, Adam Sprouse Blum, Connie van Eeghen (9)

1. Warm Up: Jen’s defense date is Sept 8!

2. Jen’s Scoping Review Intro and Methods entitled: “Accommodations Facilitating Effective Communication for Adults with Communication Disabilities in Healthcare”

a. Title: good

b. Co-authors: consider library specialists as potential co-authors, as a reminder

c. Intro

i. Check source for US adult pop statistics

ii. Is there a standard definition for CDs (communication disabilities)?

iii. Define “inadequate communication”

iv. Consider reorganizing the Intro sequence:

1. Current: Federal regs and standards, then effect on population, then effect on healthcare communication

2. Consider: reversing this order

v. Consider tightening language (examples given in discussion)

vi. Couch declarative statements in keeping with sources and to support the purpose of a scoping review, which is meant to identify the evidence that exists so far in terms of accommodations that are being studied

vii. Consider whether to include results of the identified studies, which will help support the eventual Discussion section. Is a table that reports each source essential?

1. The purpose of this study is for health care orgs to know what accommodations have been studied and for which populations, and to show the need for more rigorous studies.

2. Overall, a few studies were RCTs, one of which was very strong. “Here is the literature, with 3 RCTs and 38 weak studies.” Look at the 3 strong studies in depth as a review of what we know so far. Discussion: “Do fewer lousy studies and more RCTs!” And add solutions for how to do better studies, such as combining efforts across institutions and networks.

d. Methods

i. Summarize the key search terms

ii. Covidence 2023 is a platform that accepts Endnote citations and assigns literature sources are distributed equally, tracks reviews, eliminates duplicates, flags discrepancies between reviewers, allows extractions – has data management features that are handy; available at UVM

iii. Save results for Results!

3. Schedule for rest of the month:

a. July 20 - TBD

Recorded by: CvE

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: June 22, 2023

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 17:03:00 +0000

Present: Katie Grenon, Emily Houston, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Liliane Savard, Connie van Eeghen, Liz Winterbauer (7)

1. Warm Up:

2. Emily’s 3 posters: presenting at the World Parkinson Congress; would like feedback on first impressions, layout, and recommendations for improvements. Emily used Biorender to develop these posters, available through UVM for free.

a. First poster (analysis of PPMI data) First impressions

i. Attractive, some white space could be used better. Consider reducing methodology.

1. Poster: get people to stop and talk and connect

ii. No naked decimals! (0.00) and no over precision (3 decimal places might be too many)

iii. What is the main message?

1. This is about the dataset and what new information was learned

iv. Simplify title; consider including the main message after the “:” or deleting the words after it entirely

v. Coefficient table: is the goal to test the variable “PD duration” and confirm that the results were not confounded or to explore the potential significance of all the variables?

1. Keep the table or link to with a QR code?

vi. Results: consider focusing (with graphs) on one or two points?

b. Second poster (symptom progression) First impressions

i. Also attractive; introduction and objective can be said more directly

ii. Recheck headings

iii. Title considerations: what is the message

iv. Bar charts: differences in SD are not as meaningful as CI ranges, or eliminate the bars

v. Eliminate the tables; put key numbers on the graphs

vi. Bring handouts with contact info/QR codes

c. Third poster (depression and cognition) First impressions

i. Beautiful box chart: what is the causal relationship presented? Consider putting MoCA on the x-axis.

ii. Provide English interpretation

iii. Move key values from the table to the chart; eliminate the chart

iv. Message:

1. At five years, depressed people had more dementia, but not at baseline

2. Mean scores didn’t change much over time – is this important? If so, say why

v. What was the question: predictor is dementia (or decline?) and outcome is depression (or depression after decline?). Or decline in cognition and change in mood?

1. Consider individual change scores the predictor

3. Schedule for rest of the month:

a. June 29- Jen

Recorded by: CvE

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: June 1, 2023

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 16:39:00 +0000

Present: Justine Dee, Katie Grenon, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Jen Oshita, Connie van Eeghen, Liz Winterbauer (7)

1. Warm Up: Welcome to Katie Grenon! Welcome back Ben!!!

2. Jen’s manuscript entitled: “The Relationship between Communication Disabilities and All-Cause Mortality: A Nationally Representative Survey of Community Dwelling, Older Adults”. She is hoping for feedback on the introduction (pg. 1), analysis and results sections (pgs. 5-7)

a. Title: need year timeframe? Probably not. Consider “US” instead of “older”

b. Introduction:

i. Bring the “individual” into the introduction early; the “CDs” are not the focus

ii. Once CD is defined, don’t redefine it in use. Specifying the kinds of CDs in the original definition supports this. Do identify the source of the definition in the narrative. Consider a statement: “We defined…” or “We adopted the xxx definition…”

iii. Shrink 3 lists of associations to 1

iv. When disparities in health are accounted for (e.g. DM), what is the mechanism that might result in differences in mortality? Does controlling for disparities dilute the true impact of CDs on outcomes?

1. DM is associated with mortality

2. DM is associated with CD

3. Is the purpose of the paper to see if the bad outcomes related to CDs also touch mortality?

a. If yes, then is it because those people are more likely to have DM? If not, prevalence of DM does not explain the greater risk of mortality

b. Therefore, people with CDs appear to die younger

4. “In additional analyses, we controlled for factors x, y, z…”

v. Consider including epidemiological context, e.g. prevalence of CDs – or better: keep the individual focus noted at the beginning of this discussion

c. Methods

i. Clarify dropping participants with no time to event data

ii. Exclusion of dementia so as not to complicate the analysis – elaborate?

3. Schedule for rest of the month:

a. June 8- Open

b. June 15- Jen O. Healthcare Accommodations paper

c. June 22- Emily WPC posters

Recorded by: CvE

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: May 25, 2023

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Wed, 31 May 2023 14:58:00 +0000

Present: Justine Dee, Juvena Hitt, Emily Houston, Jerry Landau, Charlie MacLean, Jen Oshita, Liliane Savard, Adam Sprouse-Blum, Connie van Eeghen (9)

1. Warm Up: Welcome to Jerry Landau, new CTS PhD student!

2. Jen’s manuscript: Jen is asking for comments on her CD Accommodation Services paper. Her specific questions are:

a. Title – is Communication Accompaniment too vague to include in the title?

i. Audiences in the two proposed journals are very different; goal is to reach a broad audience

ii. Is the term necessary? Liliane recommended “recommendations” or just “communication”

iii. Consider including “Older adults” in title

b. Intro – General feedback on organizational flow, enough background lit?

i. The flow from older to all those with CDs and then to older is a little hard to follow

ii. Does “older adult” need to be defined (new line 37)

iii. Carefully state the meaningful part of cited studies, see new lines 46-48

c. Results and Discussion – Can it be cut anywhere?

i. Clarify how the sample represents 42m people – move to Methods?

ii. Check author instructions re: whether stats need to be in both text and tables

iii. Do the differences found in social groups represent meaningful differences? How do we know? There is no gold standard but we don’t encourage this kind of disparity and we might want to have a target that reduces this disparity

3. Schedule for rest of the month:

a. June 1 - Jen O. Survival Analysis paper

b. June 8- Open

c. June 15- Jen O. Healthcare Accommodations paper

d. June 22- Emily WPC posters

Recorded by: CvE

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: May 11 2023

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 11 May 2023 15:55:00 +0000

Present: Justine Dee, Emily Houston (for start), Liliane Savard, Connie van Eeghen, Liz Winterbauer (5)

1. Warm Up: The final requirements of the Dissertation per the Grad School – whew!

a. Continue at Thursdays at 11a?

i. No conflicts

b. Virtual or in person?

i. Some preferences for virtual

c. Year round or two semesters only?

i. Some support for summer

ii. OK to cancel or skip as needed

d. Amanda: Ben doing well; looking forward to come back

2. Justine's scoping review, latest draft with the abstract as the newest addition; overall she is looking for general feedback on clarity and flow of the results and discussion. Audience for publication are physical therapists – so PT journal or “journal on rehabilitation of torture victims”.

a. Complete paper now!

b. Discussion of what the research questions are, the “scope” of a scoping review, what the outcomes should look like, and what the conclusions can include

3. Next few weeks:

a. May 18- Liz W. Manuscript

b. May 25- Jen O. Accompaniment paper

c. June 1 - Jen O. Survival Analysis paper

d. June 8- Open

e. June 15- Jen O. Healthcare Accommodations paper

f. June 22- Emily WPC posters

Recorded by: CvE

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: April 13, 2023

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 17:53:00 +0000

Present: Peter Callas, Emily Houston, Jennifer Oshita, Liliane Savard, Connie van Eeghen (5)

1. Warm Up: PhD degrees… always taking longer than expected, sort of like finalizing manuscripts with many co-authors!

2. Jen’s methods and survival analysis: Jen will explain the project and methods, then ask for feedback on the covariates used to build her model, on a secondary analysis, and how best to present the results

a. NHATS: National health trends survey of older adults set up as a cohort study from 2011, still ongoing

i. This study has nine years of data: 2011-2020

ii. What is the hazard of dying of someone with communication disabilities (CD) vs someone without?

iii. Including only community dwelling older adults: those living independently with no assistive services imbedded in an institutional setting

iv. Excluding persons who do not speak English or have a cognitive impairment (dx of dementia)

1. Used an orientation question to assess impairment, plus word recall exercises

v. 5K+ beneficiaries

1. No CD (about 3K)

2. Any CD: could have single subtype of CD

a. Hearing only (self-reported)

b. Expressive only (self-reported)

c. Cognitive only

d. Multiple of above CDs

b. Analysis

i. If you have a CD at baseline, what is your HR over a nine year period, adjusting for covariates that might change over time (excluding gender, race, ethnicity), such as self rating of health, comorbidities, other disabilities (number of ADLs), mobility disabilities,…

1. Not BMI or other biometric measures

2. Not employment status (all are 65+ years of age) – Jen will recheck this for an association

3. Not falls – Jen will recheck this too; check with Nancy Gell

4. Consider lag time of covariates over the 9 years for a future study (not this time)

ii. Secondary analysis

1. Planning to break down CDs by subtypes, but Expressive group is relatively small compared to Hearing and Cognitive groups; the outcomes vary among groups

a. Good to help assess which subtypes might be drivers of the outcomes

b. Sample sizes are not too small

iii. Assumptions: because Jen is using time as a covariate, and death removes data for that and subsequent years, Jen had to impute missing data to prevent Stata from removing those records

1. Checked against the UCSD check list of assumptions

2. Reviewed Kaplan Meier plots for logical outcomes

3. Goodness of fit analysis (Nelson-Aalen cumulative hazard compared to Cox-Snell residual): Jen will find out more about how to interpret these results

4. How does sudden death affect the outcome? Likely shows up similarly in both groups, so not a confounder.

5. Include the number (median months?) with the presentation of the graph, along with IQR

6. Table 2: represents the final model at a high level (none, any CDs) – looks good

c. Next steps after following up on additional mediators and more investigation on interpretation

i. Check on falls and employment

ii. Follow up with Peter on Cox-Snell interpretation

iii. Finish writing up

3. Next week: TBD

Recorded by: CvE

Publication Shout Out for Jen Oshita, Nancy Gell, and Charlie MacLean!

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 21:36:00 +0000

Congrats to Jen, Nancy, Charlie, and others on the publication of "Prevalence and sociodemographic characteristics of US community-dwelling older adults with communication disabilities, using the national health and aging trends survey" in the March/April edition of the Journal of Communication Disorders, found at:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021992423000163?dgcid=author

Kudos to all!

First time (and only) time ChatGPT listed as first (and only) author in Annals of FM

noreply@blogger.com (Connie) — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 15:35:00 +0000

Annals of Family Medicine published a one page article on "Why ChatGPT Should Not Be Used to Write Academic Scientific Manuscripts for Publication," written by ChatGPT-4. You can find it at:

https://www.annfammed.org/content/annalsfm/early/2023/03/29/afm.2982.full.pdf

The article ends with a disclaimer: This is the only time a chatbot will be allowed or cited as an author
in Annals of Family Medicine. See our Policy on Authorship.

Note: this was a special publication posted on April 1, 2023... just saying.