Speakers - CSEB Winnipeg 2016

Speakers

Learn from international, national and Winnipeg-based speakers who are influential in the fields of epidemiology and biostatistics

Dr. Kue Young | Apples and oranges, or oranges and tangerines? Perils of international comparison of health indicators

This talk focuses on the pitfalls of making international comparisons of health systems and health status. The speaker will draw on his work in circumpolar health research and select examples of comparisons which vary in terms of validity, reliability and feasibility.

Kue Young, CM, MD, D.Phil, FRCPC, FCAHS, has been dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta since August 2013. Previously he has been TransCanada Chair in Aboriginal Health at the University of Toronto an​d Head of the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. He devoted much of his professional career in primary care, health administration, and academic research in Aboriginal and northern communities. His research was recognized by the CIHR Senior Investigator award and induction as Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. For his contributions to Aboriginal health, he was appointed Member of the Order of Canada in 2010.


Dr. Sandro Galea | The principles of population health science, towards scholarship of consequence

Population health science is the study of the conditions that shape distributions of health within and across populations, and of the mechanisms through which these conditions manifest as the health of individuals. Several leading schools of public health are launching doctoral programs in population health science and trainees in these schools are increasingly thinking of themselves as population health scientists. But what is “population health science”? Is it simply public health in a new cloak? In this presentation I present foundations of population health science with formative core principles around which we can organize our thinking and scholarship. I will do this as a means of providing a frame that can guide us to the opportunities for consequential action that can improve the health of populations.

Dr Galea, MD, MPH, DrPH, is a physician and an epidemiologist. He is Dean and Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. Prior to his appointment at Boston University, Dr Galea served as the Anna Cheskis Gelman and Murray Charles Gelman Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He previously held academic and leadership positions at the University of Michigan and at the New York Academy of Medicine.

In his scholarship, Dr Galea is centrally interested in the social production of health of urban populations, with a focus on the causes of brain disorders, particularly common mood-anxiety disorders and substance abuse. He has long had a particular interest in the consequences of mass trauma and conflict worldwide, including as a result of the September 11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa, and the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This work has been principally funded by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and several foundations. He has published over 500 scientific journal articles, 50 chapters and commentaries, and 9 books and his research has been featured extensively in current periodicals and newspapers. His latest book, co-authored with Dr Katherine Keyes, is an epidemiology textbook, Epidemiology Matters: a new introduction to methodological foundations.

Dr Galea has a medical degree from the University of Toronto, and graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University; he has an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow. He was named one of TIME magazine’s epidemiology innovators in 2006. He is past-president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and of the American Epidemiological Society.

Dr Galea serves frequently on advisory groups to national and international organizations. He currently serves on the Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities and has formerly served as chair of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Community Services Board and as member of its Health Board.


Dr. Xiangguo Qiu | Fighting Ebola virus infection in the lab and field

The history-making Ebola outbreak in West Africa is over. Several vaccines and treatmentstrategies against Ebola virus (EBOV), including the VSV-EBOV vaccine and the monoclonal antibody cocktail ZMapp, have progressed rapidly during this outbreak. Both VSV-EBOV and ZMapp were developed by us at the National Microbiology Lab, PHAC. This presentation will review how these two interventions were developed in the lab and used in the field during the outbreak, and the expectations for the future.

Dr. Xiangguo Qiu is the head of Vaccine Development and Antiviral Therapy group in Special Pathogens Program of National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada. She also is an adjunct professor in Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba. She received her M.D. at Hebei Medical University and M.Sc. in immunology at Tianjin Medical University. In 2003, she joined Special Pathogens Program at National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada to start studying the most deadly viruses such as Ebola/Marburg/Lassa in the only level 4 (highest containment level) laboratory in Canada. Her primary field is immunology with research emphasis on vaccine development, post-exposure therapeutics and disease modeling of haemorrhagic viruses. As a member of WHO expert team, she had provided advises/technical support for biosafety in many big events such as 2008 Bejing Olympics, etc. Her group has first demonstrated that mAbs completely protect nonhuman primates from Ebola virus infection in the filovirus field. Moreover, she and colleagues have developed VSVΔG-EBOV-GP Vaccine, ZMAb and ZMapp mAb cocktail which have been compassionately used in Ebola infected patients and showed very promising outcomes during 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak.

Dr. Qiu has been granted several awards including 2006 PHAC Research Merit award for VSV-EBOV vaccine development (team) and 2013 PHAC Research Merit award for ZMAb/ZMapp development; 2015 Dr. Frank Plummer Researcher of the Year Award, Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease, University of Manitoba; Friends of Africa Humanity Award for the contribution during the 2013-2016 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa.


Dr. Raymond J. Carroll | What Percentage of Children in the U.S. are Eating an Alarmingly Poor Diet? A Statistical Approach

In the United States the preferred method of obtaining dietary intake data is the 24-hour dietary recall, yet the measure of most interest is usual or long-term average daily intake, which is impossible to measure. Thus, usual dietary intake is assessed with considerable measurement error. Also, diet represents numerous foods, nutrients and other components, each of which have distinctive attributes. Sometimes, it is useful to examine intake of these components separately, but increasingly nutritionists are interested in exploring them collectively to capture overall dietary patterns and their effect on various diseases. Consumption of these components varies widely: some are consumed daily by almost everyone on every day, while others are episodically consumed so that 24-hour recall data are zero-inflated. In addition, they are often correlated with each other. Finally, it is often preferable to analyze the amount of a dietary component relative to the amount of energy (calories) in a diet because dietary recommendations often vary with energy level.

We propose the first model appropriate for this type of data, and give the first workable solution to fit such a model. The methodology, along with uncertainty quantification, is illustrated through an application to estimating the population distribution of the Healthy Eating Index-2005 (HEI-2005), a multi-component dietary quality index involving ratios of interrelated dietary components to energy, among children aged 2-8 in the United States. We answer the question in the title of this talk, pose a number of interesting questions about the HEI-2005, and show that it is a powerful predictor of the risk of developing colorectal cancer.

Dr. Raymond J. Carroll http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~carroll is Distinguished Professor of Statistics and Nutrition at Texas A&M University (USA), and Distinguished Professor at the University of Technology Sydney (Australia). He has been P.I. of a major NCI grant for the development of statistical methodology since 1990, and became the first statistician to receive the prestigious National Cancer Institute MERIT Award (in 2005). He is the Director of the Texas A&M Institute for Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (http://iamcs.tamu.edu).

Dr. Carroll served as editor of Biometrics, the journal of the International Biometric Society, and as editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association (Theory and Methods). He has won many honors in the profession, including the 1988 COPSS Presidents’ Award, given annually by the North American statistical societies to the outstanding statistician under the age of 40. He gave the Fisher Lecture at the 2002 Joint Statistical Meetings, an award given by the major statistical societies in honor of a senior statistician whose research has “influenced the theory and practice of statistics”. He was the founding chair of the Biostatistics Study Section (BMRD) at the National Institutes of Health. He is an elected Fellow of all three major international statistical organizations, and the AAAS. He has graduated 44 Ph.D. students.


Dr. Ann Aschengrau | Long-Term Neurotoxic Effects of Early Life Exposure to Tetrachloroethyene (PCE)-Contaminated Drinking Water

Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) is a solvent commonly used for metal degreasing, textile processing, and dry cleaning. Because most of its use occurs in uncontrolled occupational settings, PCE is a common drinking water and Superfund site contaminant. PCE and the closely related solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) have well-known neurotoxic effects among adults who are exposed in occupational settings. However, much less is known about the neurotoxic effects of lower level environmental exposures, particularly among pregnant women and children.

Dr. Aschengrau will describe her ongoing epidemiological research on the long-term neurotoxic effects of prenatal and childhood exposure to PCE-contaminated drinking water among residents of Cape Cod Massachusetts. From 1968 through 1980 widespread contamination of public drinking water supplies with PCE occurred in this region. The source of the contamination was a vinyl liner applied to the inner surface of water distribution pipes. Dr. Aschengrau’s research is part of the Boston University Superfund Research Program and is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Ann Aschengrau is Professor of Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. She received a BA in Biology from Northeastern University and MSc and DSc degrees in epidemiology from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Aschengrau has been an environmental epidemiologist for the past 30 years and has focused much of her teaching and research in this area. In particular, she has authored nearly 100 research reports that focus mainly on the health effects of environmental pollution, particularly drinking water contaminants. She is currently the Principal Investigator of a study on the risk of birth defects and stillbirths in relation to prenatal exposure to tetrachloroethylene-contaminated drinking water. Dr. Aschengrau has also served as a member of advisory committees for governmental agencies, has taught courses in epidemiology for the past 25 years, and has co-authored the best-selling textbook “Essentials of Epidemiology in Public Health,” now in its third edition.


Dr. Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair

Dr. Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe, originally from St. Peter’s (Little Peguis) Indian Settlement near Selkirk, Manitoba, and is an Associate Professor and current Head of the Department of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba. He is an international commentator on Indigenous issues for outlets like Al-Jazeera, The Guardian, and national broadcasters like CTV, CBC, and The Globe and Mail and was named one of CBC Manitoba's "Top 40 under 40" in 2015. Niigaan is an award winning speaker, writer, and editor of such books as the award-winning Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water (Highwater Press, 2011) and Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories (Michigan State University Press, 2013), The Winter We Danced: Voices of the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement (Arbeiter Ring Press, 2014). He is the Editorial Director of The Debwe Series with Portage and Main Press.