Parachute Study revisited - by scientists who actually carried it out

Curtail your skepticism, please, and be a good scientist and read the details first:

Parachute Study Revisited - NPR Story

Justine Dee's research in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Congratulations to Justine Dee, PT, MS, Assistant Professor of Movement Science, on the recent publication of her work on Medicare policies about physical and occupational therapy for chronic conditions. 

Justine Dee, Benjamin Littenberg. Did Clarification of Medicare Guidelines Change Outpatient Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy Usage? A Retrospective Analysis. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Volume 100, Issue 1,2019, Pages 78-85,

Objective: To determine if there was a change in the number of outpatient physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) visits for Medicare beneficiaries, and in the number of beneficiaries receiving extended courses of >12 therapy visits, after the Jimmo vs Sebelius settlement.

Design: Cross-sectional analysis of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) comparing calendar years 2011-2012 to 2014-2015.

Setting: Community in-home survey.

Participants: Medicare Part-B recipients who received outpatient PT/OT (N=1183, median age 70.8) during pre–Jimmo settlement (2011-2012) and post–Jimmo settlement (2014-2015) time periods.

Intervention: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: Number of therapy visits/patient/year and number of subjects who received >12 therapy visits/year estimated by linear and logistic regressions controlling for potential confounders (age, body mass index [BMI], and geographic region).

Results: The unadjusted median number of therapy visits/year increased from 7 to 8 after the settlement. Linear regression estimated a 1.02 increase in the number of therapy visits after the settlement (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.23, 1.80; P=.01). The odds of having >12 therapy visits/year increased (odds ratio=1.41; 95% CI 1.02,1.96; P=.04). We observed a significant interaction between race and the effect of the settlement on the odds of having >12 therapy visits (OR 3.64; 95% CI 1.58, 8.39). Non-Hispanic white subjects saw an increase in utilization while a combined group of black, Hispanic and Asian subjects’ utilization declined.

Conclusion: Utilization of outpatient PT/OT changed after the 2013 Jimmo settlement. Further research is needed to determine the effect on patient outcomes and cost.

The full article is available here: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1YGNIwCfyeCb

NIH K-awards

The NIH just released this year's K-award announcement. The K-series allow for 3 to 5 years of protected time to develop the skills and portfolio needed to succeed as a PI. There are specific grants for various levels of training and backgrounds from postdoc to junior faculty to mid-career investigator. You can sort out which one is right for you at  https://researchtraining.nih.gov/programs/career-development

K-awards are just about the best grants you can get because they support a large fraction of your effort (typically 75% to 100%) for a fairly long time. Protected time being one of the 5 magic ingredients of a successful research career, this is a really good thing! I had a K23 and it made a big difference. They are just about the best way to transition from wannabe investigator to successful independent career PI.

Let me know if you have any questions.

- Ben Littenberg

Fwd: IPUMS Research Awards | Job Openings

If you have been using IPUMS, maybe you can win an award. If you haven't, you ought to be! They have all the big medical and social data sets available in well-curated formats.

- Ben Littenberg

IPUMS Census and Survey Data  Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Dear IPUMS User, We are entering our favorite season, one filled with merriment and good cheer. That's right, it's IPUMS Research Award season! We are also looking for new data analysts to join our intrepid team. Please read on for details about both. 2018 IPUMS Research Awards We are pleased to announce the 11th annual IPUMS Research Awards competition. We are looking for papers that use innovative approaches, comparative analyses, and multiple IPUMS datasets. In short, we are looking for papers that use the data to its full potential. We have two new categories this year with awards for published papers and graduate student papers in each category.  USA: Best paper using data from IPUMS USA and/or IPUMS CPS International: Best paper using data from IPUMS International and/or the North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP) Health Surveys: Best paper using data from IPUMS NHIS or IPUMS MEPS Spatial: Best paper using data from IPUMS NHGIS and/or IPUMS Terra Global Health: Best paper using data from IPUMS DHS and/or IPUMS PMA Time Use: Best paper using data from IPUMS Time Use Deadline for submission is February 13, 2018. For more information on eligibility and the submission process, visit the IPUMS Research Awards page.  se it for good! The IPUMS Team IPUMS | University of Minnesota Copyright © 2018 University of Minnesota, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: IPUMS 225 19th Ave South Minneapolis, MN 55455

This email was sent to benjamin.littenberg@uvm.edu why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences University of Minnesota · 225 19th Avenue South · 50 Willey Hall · Minneapolis, MN 55455 · USA

Fwd: New NSOC and NHATS Data Released

Beta data! 

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: NHATS Data <nhatsdata@westat.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 3:21 PM
Subject: New NSOC and NHATS Data Released
To: NHATS Data <nhatsdata@westat.com>

We are pleased to announce that new data from the National Study of Caregiving (NSOC) have been released. This beta data release consists of a cross-sectional file of informal helpers identified in the round 7 National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS). New in this round of NSOC, caregivers to NHATS respondents who died are interviewed about end of life caregiving.

 

We also are re-releasing the NSOC II (2015) file with three updates:

 

·         recoding and replacing the race and ethnicity variables

·         revisions to 3 derived variables related to children of NSOC respondents (any living children; number of living children; number of living children under age 18).

·         revised weights based on removing a small number of ineligible cases from control totals

 

NSOC data are available under our sensitive data procedures; the application can be accessed at https://www.nhatsdata.org/Home/ResDataFiles. Documentation, including a user guide, annotated data collection instruments, and a crosswalk between the instruments and the codebook can be found at https://www.nhats.org.

 

Additional NSOC files, including a longitudinal file following all participants in the 2015 NSOC and a time diary file, will be released at a later date.

 

A final NHATS Round 7 file is also being released at this time and can be downloaded at https://www.nhatsdata.org.

 

Fwd: UVM Student Research Conference Announcement

                                                                Save the Date:    Wednesday, April 17^th,2019,  9:00am-5:00pm, Davis Center, University of Vermont

 

 

Faculty colleagues:

 

I would like to invite you and your students to actively participate in the UVM Student Research Conference (SRC) on April 17, 2019. The SRC is a University-wide event with about 400 students participating across all disciplines from every College  at UVM.

https://www.uvm.edu/four/student-research-conference

 

If you have any questions or if you need assistance please contact Lily Fedorko at lily.fedorko@uvm.edu.

 

Sincerely, 
 
Richard Galbraith, MD, PhD
Vice President for Research

 

 

 

Vermont State Health Assessment 2018

The Vermont State Health Assessment 2018 is a great big data book on the health of Vermonters, including many social determinants of health. It pays special attention to health inequalities. Learn more at http://www.healthvermont.gov/about/reports/state-health-assessment-2018.

-Ben Littenberg

Fwd: Computational Research at UVM: Learn about new opportunities with the Vermont Advanced Computing Core

FYI

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Galbraith, Richard A. <Richard.Galbraith@med.uvm.edu>
Date: Thu, Nov 15, 2018, 11:50 AM
Subject: Computational Research at UVM: Learn about new opportunities with the Vermont Advanced Computing Core
To: <UVMFACULTY@list.uvm.edu>

 

Richard A. Galbraith, MD, PhD
Vice President for Research

 

I would like to invite you to a meeting to discuss new computational research opportunities that the Vermont Advanced Computing Core (VACC) has to offer that will benefit faculty and researchers. The VACC is a University-wide research core facility offering high performance computing through massively parallel and big data computational services to UVM faculty, staff, and students. Members of the VACC Team that includes the Faculty Director and staff from both the Office of the Vice President for Research and Enterprise Technology Services will be available to provide training to faculty, students, and researchers to help them with any of their computational research needs.

 

Wednesday, November 28^th

1:00pm-2:00pm

Waterman Building, room 338 (Memorial Lounge)

 

Agenda:

 

1. Opening remarks from Simeon Ananou, UVM Chief Information Officer
2. DeepGreen: a new massively parallel cluster composed of over 70 GPUs capable of over 8 petaflops of mixed precision calculations based on the NVIDIA Tesla V100 architecture. Its hybrid design can expedite high-throughput artificial intelligence and machine learning workflows and its extreme parallelism will forge new and transformative research pipelines. This project is funded by an award from the National Science Foundation, Major Research Instrumentation.
3. #UVMComputes: a project designed to allow anyone with a laptop to help their fellow faculty and students do research by simply pointing their browser at the #UVMComputes web page. The network of participating laptops becomes an on-campus supercomputer! This project is funded by the first ever gift from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to UVM. One of the Sloan Foundation's goals is to lower the barriers of entry into science for as many people as possible: UVM is excited to be joining the Sloan Foundation in this adventure through the #UVMComputes project.
4. Summary: a description of the current cluster, Bluemoon, and a  brief summary of the technical support and consulting services provided on a wide variety of issues ranging from data storage, software implementation and licensing, and hardware requirements. Introduction of new workshops that will be available to faculty, staff, and students that are new to high performance computing.

 

Please come and bring your students with you to learn more about the VACC.

 

Sincerely, 
 
Richard Galbraith, MD, PhD
Vice President for Research

Getting verb tenses into your manuscript correctly

 Amanda Kennedy came across a great resource for scientific writers, which explains everything including "present perfect tense" and "future perfect tense" with high clarity and low stress.  Tuck away for future use:

Right Verb Tense for Manuscript

Thanks to Anu Garg at https://wordsmith.org for the latest authoritative quote on Authority:

There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god. -J.B.S. Haldane, scientist (1892-1964)

See the others in the sidebar of this page.

-Ben Littenberg

Career Opp combining Health Outcomes + Translational Science + Space Travel - not kidding

This is a combination of interests that just must be shared...

NASA Data Scientist opportunity

Dear Space Grant Consortium Director,

The NASA funded Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) invites applications for a Visiting Data Scientist to be based at NASA Johnson Space Center. The opportunity is designed for individuals who desire to use a sabbatical or other career development leave to explore new applications for their research or to develop their skills at the research program level.  We are contacting you to ask that you forward this announcement to your member universities for distribution to interested faculty.

The selected candidate will work with NASA scientists to improve and interpret analytical assessments of research and astronaut health data.

Specific duties and responsibilities are:

·         Collaborate with NASA personnel to design and apply data analysis to health outcomes and research in alignment with strategic goals

·         Support concept development, protocol design, and analytic plan development for research and discovery projects

·         Develop and administer data collection instructions to support integrated analytics of research projects

·         Build and manage strategic internal and external relationships to expand data analysis projects, develop new opportunities, facilitate work, and achieve business goals

·         Collaborate with cross-functional colleagues to implement and evolve Data Systems Architecture to support analytic-based outcomes and real-world- evidence efforts

·         Take an active role in data interpretation, analysis, and presentation development of health-related information

Program specifics include:

·         24 months duration (Candidates may propose for less than two years but availability of the candidate may be a factor during selection)

·         The visiting scientist will remain an employee of his or her home institution (the employing company, university, laboratory, etc.)

·         If a visiting scientist candidate is selected, a grant will be awarded to the visiting scientist’s home institution (the employing company, university, laboratory, etc.)

·         The visiting scientist will be located at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston,  TX

·         Two years of salary support (competitive) plus fringe and benefits and indirect costs (if applicable)

·         Cost of relocation and some travel to scientific meetings is covered by TRISH

·         TRISH grants require cost-sharing consisting of an augmentation of at least 10% of the total annual grant

Program specific details and how to apply for this opportunity can be found at:  https://spacehealth.bcm.edu/prog/flex-1901/.

Please email SpaceHealth-Info@bcm.edu for additional information.

About TRISH:

The Translational Research Institute for Space Health is a NASA-funded virtual institute charged with leading a national effort in translating cutting-edge emerging terrestrial research into applied space flight human risk mitigation strategies for exploration missions. The institute is led by Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in partnership with the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Learn more about the Translational Research Institute of Space Health.

SciLine

SciLine is an effort by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to support journalists who need rapid access to scientific expertise in pursuing their reporting. Perhaps it can help stem the flood of misleading information and fake news that sometimes swamps rational discourse. I signed up here. Maybe you should, too?

- Ben Littenberg

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: Oct 11, 2018

Present:   Levi Bonnell, Marianne Burke, Juvena Hitt, Kairn Kelley (GTM), Ben Littenberg, Gail Rose, Connie van Eeghen, Jen LaVoie, Paula Reynolds (GTM)

1.                   Warm Up: Introduced Paula Reynolds as an IBHPC patient partner

2.                   Jen Lavoie and Gail Rose -   Invited to share what IBHPC project learned about patient engagement and its impact on the project.  Audience includes funded researchers, researchers looking for funding, patients, family members, policy makers, and others.  This is Jen’s first poster; her mission is to extend PCORI’s message of patient-centered care and research.

a.       Instructions:  What do you like/not like?  What is clear/what not?  How would you do it differently

b.       What we like:

                                                   i.      Color

                                                 ii.      Last sentence in introduction: helpful, but raises question of how it leads to PCI, which was the presumed outcome of the poster on first read

                                               iii.      Conversational tone

                                               iv.      Favorite boxes are all to the right and small

                                                 v.      Pictures that showed what you did

c.       What to think about:

                                                   i.      How to reduce the feeling of “too much too take in”

                                                 ii.      Gradient background is hard to read; white on light green is also hard

                                               iii.      Lessons Learned are key but not readable; these should answer the question; consider putting in center

                                               iv.      Reduce picture content (but keep the smiling, laughing faces)

                                                 v.      Trim the sentences

                                               vi.      Reduce the acronyms

                                              vii.      Combine green “Focus Group” steps with yellow action steps for Affinity Diagram; include who is in the groups

                                            viii.      Identify the key message: what are you doing to make engagement effective?

                                                ix.      Can you include preliminary results in a poster?  (Gail to check with Abby.)  Or anticipate results, but don’t report them.

                                                 x.      Revise the title to focus on the key message

                                                xi.      Add objective of poster, with a brief explanation of IBHPC

3.                   Next week: Levi to decide

4.                   Future topics: TBD

Recorded by: CvE