Biostatistics and Data Science Facility Core

Icahn School Of Medicine At Mount Sinai, New York NY

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

Project Summary The mission of Mount Sinai’s P30 Center on Health and Environment Across the LifeSpan (HEALS) is to accelerate team science–based research utilizing life course–informed models of health. The Biostatistics and Data Science Facility Core (BDSFC) plays a key role in that mission by modeling complex exposure and phenotype data generated by Center Members across a spectrum of study types (basic, clinical, epidemiologic) to integrate environment and health outcomes. Services include standard data analysis as well as developing methods to address our Center’s research themes (exposomics, mixtures and clinical environmental research). Environmental conditions are common and higher rates of poor air quality, poor water quality, poor nutrition and exposure to toxic chemicals clearly play major roles in the etiology of chronic diseases. By embracing a life course approach, our Center promotes research that addresses both early life environment and the later life environments that determine developmental health trajectories. We also emphasize the complexity of environmental health which crosses space (geospatial variability) and time (longitudinal time series effects, life stage effects, etc) while bridging public health (i.e. prevention of disease) with clinical medicine (disease diagnosis and treatment variability). Our approach is based upon the fundamental principle that “all diseases are influenced by environment.” While we offer standard data analytic services (e.g., linear models, longitudinal mixed effects models, power calculations, study analysis planning) the statistical methods and study designs needed for analyzing the complex, high-dimensional data that arise in much of our Center’s work are still relatively new and require knowledge of advanced statistical techniques and the ability to curate and interpret complex biologic data. This type of expertise is maintained by the faculty of the BDSFC. Core faculty and researchers engage in research motivated by questions and methodological challenges that arise from center collaborations and innovations including many developed by our Center Cores. Core faculty and staff provide statistical and data science training for postdoctoral fellows working on environmental health sciences (EHS) related projects. Providing such services via a core facility allows the P30 Center to build and maintain specialized resources (e.g., expertise in measuring and advancing statistical methods related to evaluation of environmental mixtures). Thus, to support the overall goals of the P30 Center, the BDSFC proposes the following specific aims: (1) to ensure that Center projects are grounded in sound biostatistical/data science principles and use state-of-the-art methods for design and analysis of EHS data; (2) to conduct mission-critical biostatistical/data science methods research for further quality assurance of all research and data analysis methods; and (3) to assist in the training of biostatistical/data science principles and analysis methods to Center investigators, fellows and post-doctoral trainees.