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

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

 

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

 

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