Novel Methods at the Intersection of Epidemiology and Policy-Making

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Minority Affairs Committee Scientific Workshop, Achieving Diversity in the Field of Epidemiology: Progress Made, Challenges and Opportunities

The mission of the Minority Affairs Committee of the American College of Epidemiology is to increase minority representation in the epidemiology profession and to recommend actions that increase the likelihood of significantepidemiologic researchon health issues important to racial/ethnic minority populations.  During this year’s American College of Epidemiology Annual Conference, we dedicate our all-day pre-conference Scientific Workshop to issues related to achieving diversity in the field of epidemiology.

The goal of the workshop is primarily to aid workshop participants and secondarily to assist interested epidemiologists and policymakers to learn about the causes of the under-representation of racial and ethnic minorities in the epidemiologic profession, and to discussways to reduce this inequity, particularly in the field of health disparities research.  

Specifically we will explore themes related to:

• Obstacles and solutions to increasing diversity in the epidemiology profession.
• The social context that hinders the entrance of members of racial/ethnic minorities into higher education in science and health related professions.
• Barriers to advancement of racial/ethnic minority epidemiologists in the profession.
• Examples of practices and achievements that attract minorities into the epidemiology profession
• Recommending next steps within the Epidemiology profession and among policy makers

Workshop Agenda

Sunday, September 13, 2009

8:30 am – 12 noon
1. Topic: Epidemiology and Risk Assessment
Risk assessments bring to bear the existing scientific information – and the critical interpretation of that information – on questions of the existence, nature, and magnitude of risks that may be posed by exposure to an agent.  They are used by regulatory agencies to set standards for chemicals in the environment and the workplace below which human health risks are likely to be negligible.  They are also used to address whether exposure to an agent likely caused a health effect in specific individuals.  In this workshop, we will discuss the fundamentals of risk assessment, including hazard identification, exposure assessment, dose-response assessment, and risk characterization. We will focus specifically on the use of epidemiology in the risk assessment process and how limitations and uncertainties are addressed.  We will discuss differences between using risk assessment for setting regulations vs. addressing causation, and we will also discuss principles of assessing risks for cancer and non-cancer health effects.  Students will have the opportunity to conduct a risk assessment of a chemical based on published epidemiology data and to calculate a mock regulatory standard.
Presenter: Julie E. Goodman, Ph.D., DABT, Principal Scientist / Gradient Corporation

2. Topic: Introduction to Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

This workshop introduces the basic con­cepts, methods and issues in systematic review and meta-analysis, including soft­ware selection and use. Concepts, methods and issues are illustrated with published examples on a wide range of topics in ob­servational and experimental epidemiology. Each participant should bring a calculator.

Participants will:

1. Develop an appreciation for defining and delimiting the purpose of a system­atic review.

2. Understand the options in defining, searching and retrieving “the literature” on a topic.

3. Learn when meta-analytic methods are indicated and contraindicated in a systematic review.

4. Gain experience in extracting informa­tion from reports and creating a meta-analytic data set.

5. Understand the steps in systematically contacting investigators for missing information.                  

6. Acquire an aptitude for conducting preparatory within-study analyses.

7. Learn to interpret the main graphical displays in meta-analysis.

8. Develop an understanding of the causes, detection and correction of publication bias.

9. Become familiar with tools for assessing and measuring heterogeneity.

10. Obtain a working knowledge of fixed-effect and random-effects models.

11. Gain skills in stratified and meta-re­gression analysis of study and partici­pant characteristics.

12. Discuss warranted and unwarranted conclusions from systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Presenter: Charles Poole, MPH, ScD, University of North Carolina

1:00 pm – 4:30 pm
3. Topic:  Free workshop for Students. Straight from the Horses’ Mouths: Mentors, Mentees, and Recruiters Tell All about Careers for Epidemiologists in Government, Industry, Academia, and Consulting.
Career opportunities in epidemiology have never been more varied. At the same time, the economic downturn has cast a pall over what was a booming job market. This may predispose soon-to-be-graduates or early career epidemiologists to consider a wider range of career paths than they would have otherwise. This workshop will offer a unique opportunity to hear from leading epidemiologists (mentors) in the government, industry, academic, and consulting sectors as well as from early career epidemiologists (mentees) who have chosen those sectors. You will also hear from recruiters to gain their perspectives on what employers are looking for as well as how to present yourself well when seeking a job.

The workshop will be fast-moving with no long-winded speeches and lots of time for Q&As (both during and after the workshop). Further, the participating mentors, mentees, and recruiters were chosen based on their high likelihood of being brutally frank about the pros and cons of their employment sector. This workshop represents an evolution of previous workshops that were offered at various epidemiology society meetings to include the perspectives of mentees and recruiters. We hope you will join us for this unique workshop.
Contact person(s): Mentoring Committee

3:00 – 4:30 pm
4. Topic: National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grant Review workshop
The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the scientific review of investigator-initiated grant applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH extramural grants are awarded based on a system of peer review that has as its goal evaluating the scientific and technical merit of an application through a process that is fair, competent and thorough. Rather recent changes to peer review include special opportunities for principal investigators who have never had an NIH R01 grant application and/or who are in the early stages of their scientific careers, the opportunity to have multiple principal investigators on an application, more rapid receipt of scores and summary statements and incentives for reviewers. Very new changes include reducing the number of times an application can be resubmitted from twice to once, scoring on an integer scale of one to nine, restructuring the criteria by which the scientific and technical merit of an application is assessed, adoption of structured critique templates and provision of criterion scores for all applications, including those not discussed at the meeting. Shortening and streamlining applications will be phased in next year. This workshop will focus on these changes and other special issues. Information on the six chartered epidemiology study sections will be provided.

Presenters:
Dana Jeffrey Plude, PhD, Acting Chief, Division of AIDS, Behavioral, and Population Sciences (DABPS), Center for Scientific Review (CSR), NIH
Robert Weller, PhD, Chief, Population Sciences and Epidemiology Integrated Review Group, DABPS, CSR, NIH
Sandra Melnick Seitz, Dr.P.H., F.A.C.E., Scientific Review Officer, Population Sciences and Epidemiology, DABPS, CSR, NIH

Epidemiology Chairs Meeting
2:00 – 5:00 pm: Business meeting to formalize the group’s structure and governance; nominations and voting for leadership positions

5:00-7:00 Host Reception: Lincoln Ballroom, Crowne Plaza  
Greeting by Alan Greenberg, Chair, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services  

All are welcome!

7:00 Associate Member Gathering, All Associate Members Welcome! Please meet in the Lincoln Pre-Function Area

Monday, September 14, 2009

8:00 GWU host greetings (Dean Josef Reum, Interim Dean, Associate Dean for Administration and Finance and an Associate Professor in both the Department of Health Policy and the Department of Health Services Management and Leadership)
Program Chair greeting (Diana Bensyl)

8:15-10:30 Keynote Speakers
James Marks, senior vice president, Director Health Group, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Epidemiology, Public Health, and Public Policy

David Michaels, Research Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services: Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health  

10:30 break

10:45-12:00 Keynote Speakers
Joel Schwartz, Professor of Environmental Epidemiology, Department of Environmental Health, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard University

Larry Altman, New York Times Medical Correspondent

12:15-1:15 Luncheon roundtables:

1. Jonathan Tobin, Practice-Based Research
2.  Aarti Shah (counsel for the Republican U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce) and Sudip S. Parikh ( former Science Advisor & Professional Staff,
United States Senate), The Role of Epidemiology in Legislative Activity
3. Alberto Barcelo (International Health Policy - the Pan American Health Organization Experience)
4. Epidemiology Chairs Luncheon, including a seminar on “Navigating Administrative Troubled Waters – Strategies for managing departments in difficult financial times.”

ACE committees desiring an informal business may gather in the Kennedy Ballroom with their lunches and use the lunch hour to have their meeting.

1:30-3:00 Joseph Rodricks, Principal, Environ Corporation, and Thomas Burke, Professor and Associate Dean for Public Health Practice and Training, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health: Epidemiology and decisions regarding public health risks of environmental origin--where are we headed and what are the impediments?

3:00 break

3:15-4:30 Moderators: Mark Schiffman, Senior Investigator, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health and Debbie Winn, Deputy Director, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Institutes of Health: HPV Panel: Epidemiologic needs regarding natural history of disease through policy issues, especially related to implications of HPV and the vaccine on future screening recommendations.

4:30 ACE Business Meeting, All ACE members welcome to attend

5:00-7:00 Poster Session and ACE Fellows and Epidemiology Chairs Reception: Lincoln Ballroom, Crowne Plaza    
All are Welcome!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

7:30 Breakfast roundtables:
1. Jan Risser: Novel Sampling Methods,
2. Yvette Cozier and Rhonda BeLue: Defining "Minority" in Health Disparities Research,
3. Dan Strickland: Collaborating with HMO-based Researchers,
4. Roberta Ness, Diana Bensyl, Preparing for Interviews and Job Talks,
5. Iris Obrams, Deborah del Junco, Erin Fox, The Clinical and Translational Science Award Program and Opportunities for Epidemiologists

5. Melissa Adams, Charles DiMaggio: Publishing and Policy: The Implications of Discussion Sections and Commentaries in the Epidemiologic Literature

8:45 Presidential address (Roberta Ness)

9:00 Student Prize Paper presentation

9:15-10:45, Veteran’s Administration Session
Michael Stoto, Professor of Health Systems Administration and Population Health,
Georgetown University: Did military service cause my illness?  New approaches to assessing causality for veterans’ compensation policy
Lynn Goldman
David Goldsmith

10:45 break

11:00-12:30 Translation of Epidemiology to Policy: Report from the ACE Workshop, Patricia Hartge and Ross Brownson )

12:30-2:30 Awards Luncheon and Closing, All are welcome!