Statistical competencies for medical research learners: What is fundamental?

IntroductionIt is increasingly essential for medical researchers to be literate in statistics, but the requisite degree of literacy is not the same for every statistical competency in translational research. Statistical competency can range from 'fundamental' (necessary for all) to 'specialized' (necessary for only some). In this study, we determine the degree to which each competency is fundamental or specialized.MethodsWe surveyed members of 4 professional organizations, targeting doctorally trained biostatisticians and epidemiologists who taught statistics to medical research learners in the past 5 years. Respondents rated 24 educational competencies on a 5-point Likert scale anchored by 'fundamental' and 'specialized.'ResultsThere were 112 responses. Nineteen of 24 competencies were fundamental. The competencies considered most fundamental were assessing sources of bias and variation (95%), recognizing one's own limits with regard to statistics (93%), identifying the strengths, and limitations of study designs (93%). The least endorsed items were meta-analysis (34%) and stopping rules (18%).ConclusionWe have identified the statistical competencies needed by all medical researchers. These competencies should be considered when designing statistical curricula for medical researchers and should inform which topics are taught in graduate programs and evidence-based medicine courses where learners need to read and understand the medical research literature

Exile Vol. XXXII No. 1

ARTWORK Red and White by Karen Koch (cover) Vicissitudes I by Claudia H. Donegan 1 Untitled (\u2784} by Kok Fooi Yong 11 Lines by Don Jacobs 15 Vicissitudes II by Claudia H. Donegan 19 Waltham, Boston, Winter of \u2784 by Kok Fooi Yong 25 Statue You by Claudia H. Donegan 29 Museum Sketch by Deanna Lynne Bridgeforth 41 FICTION Sheba by Theresa Copeland 4-9 Was There Really Someone in the Kitchen With Dinah? by Susan Hanlon 21-24 What Do You Say Liza Blue? by Joan R. DeWitt 32-40 POETRY Ode by Jeff Masten 3 Misdemeanor by Karen J. Hall 10 Aimee and Kate by Jennifer Miller 13 Bound by Betsy Oster 14 Drawing by Reid Benes 17 Great-Grandfather by Debra Benko 18 Grammy Hayes and the Infamous Beaver by Jennifer Miller 27 Seabed by Judson B. Curry 28 Gentleman\u27s Quarterly (anonymous) 31 CONTRIBUTOR NOTES 43 Editors share equally all editorial decisions -ii Special thanks to Susan Moran and Elizabeth Wright -i

Best Practices for Biostatistical Consultation and Collaboration in Academic Health Centers

Given the increasing level and scope of biostatistics expertise needed at academic health centers today, we developed best practices guidelines for biostatistics units to be more effective in providing biostatistical support to their institutions, and in fostering an environment in which unit members can thrive professionally. Our recommendations focus on the key areas of: 1) funding sources and mechanisms; 2) providing and prioritizing access to biostatistical resources; and 3) interacting with investigators. We recommend that the leadership of biostatistics units negotiate for sufficient long-term infrastructure support to ensure stability and continuity of funding for personnel, align project budgets closely with actual level of biostatistical effort, devise and consistently apply strategies for prioritizing and tracking effort on studies, and clearly stipulate with investigators prior to project initiation policies regarding funding, lead time, and authorship

Distinct Binding and Immunogenic Properties of the Gonococcal Homologue of Meningococcal Factor H Binding Protein

Neisseria meningitidis is a leading cause of sepsis and meningitis. The bacterium recruits factor H (fH), a negative regulator of the complement system, to its surface via fH binding protein (fHbp), providing a mechanism to avoid complement-mediated killing. fHbp is an important antigen that elicits protective immunity against the meningococcus and has been divided into three different variant groups, V1, V2 and V3, or families A and B. However, immunisation with fHbp V1 does not result in cross-protection against V2 and V3 and vice versa. Furthermore, high affinity binding of fH could impair immune responses against fHbp. Here, we investigate a homologue of fHbp in Neisseria gonorrhoeae, designated as Gonococcal homologue of fHbp (Ghfp) which we show is a promising vaccine candidate for N. meningitidis. We demonstrate that Gfhp is not expressed on the surface of the gonococcus and, despite its high level of identity with fHbp, does not bind fH. Substitution of only two amino acids in Ghfp is sufficient to confer fH binding, while the corresponding residues in V3 fHbp are essential for high affinity fH binding. Furthermore, immune responses against Ghfp recognise V1, V2 and V3 fHbps expressed by a range of clinical isolates, and have serum bactericidal activity against N. meningitidis expressing fHbps from all variant groups

Quality of Care for HIV Infection Provided by Ryan White Program-Supported versus Non-Ryan White Program-Supported Facilities

BACKGROUND: The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Care Act (now the Treatment Modernization Act; Ryan White Program, or RWP) is a source of federal public funding for HIV care in the United States. The Health Services and Resources Administration requires that facilities or providers who receive RWP funds ensure that HIV health services are accessible and delivered according to established HIV-related treatment guidelines. We used data from population-based samples of persons in care for HIV infection in three states to compare the quality of HIV care in facilities supported by the RWP, with facilities not supported by the RWP. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Within each area (King County in Washington State; southern Louisiana; and Michigan), a probability sample of patients receiving care for HIV infection in 1998 was drawn. Based on medical records abstraction, information was collected on prescription of antiretroviral therapy according to treatment recommendations, prescription of prophylactic therapy, and provision of recommended vaccinations and screening tests. We calculated population-level estimates of the extent to which HIV care was provided according to then-current treatment guidelines in RWP-supported and non-RWP-supported facilities. For all treatment outcomes analyzed, the compliance with care guidelines was at least as good for patients who received care at RWP-supported (vs non-RWP supported) facilities. For some outcomes in some states, delivery of recommended care was significantly more common for patients receiving care in RWP-supported facilities: for example, in Louisiana, patients receiving care in RWP-supported facilities were more likely to receive indicated prophylaxis for Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia and Mycobacterium avium complex, and in all three states, women receiving care in RWP-supported facilities were more likely to have received an annual Pap smear. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The quality of HIV care provided in 1998 to patients in RWP-supported facilities was of equivalent or better quality than in non-RWP supported facilities; however, there were significant opportunities for improvement in all facility types. Data from population-based clinical outcomes surveillance data can be used as part of a broader strategy to evaluate the quality of publicly-supported HIV care

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe