NOSI to Support Enhancement of Software Tools for Multilevel Mediation Analysis for Investigating Effects of Environmental and Individual Risk Factors on Respiratory Diseases

NOSI 支持增强多级中介分析软件工具，以调查环境和个人风险因素对呼吸道疾病的影响

• 批准号: 10403859
• 负责人: Stephania A Cormier
• 金额: $ 22.7万
• 依托单位: LOUISIANA STATE UNIV A&M COL BATON ROUGE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-02 至 2022-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10403859
• 关键词: Address; Adoption; Affect; Air Pollutants; Algorithmic Software; Australia; Behavioral; Big Data; Birth; Categories; Chemicals; Child; Cloud Computing; Code; Communities; Complex; Computer software; Computers; Data; Data Analyses; Data Set; Drops; Engineering; Environment; Exposure to; Fire - disasters; Free Radicals; Geographic Locations; Graph; Hazardous Waste Sites; Health; House Dust; Individual; Internet; Intervention; Intuition; Knowledge; Language; Life; Link; Literature; Lung diseases; Measures; Mediating; Mediation; Mediator of activation protein; Methods; Modeling; Outcome; Particulate Matter; Pathway interactions; Performance; Policy Maker; Population; Quality of life; Queensland; R programming language; Research; Research Personnel; Resources; Risk Factors; Science; Scientific Inquiry; Scientist; Software Engineering; Software Tools; Source; Speed; Statistical Methods; Stephania; Structure; Superfund; Taxes; Techniques; Technology; Testing; Universities; Visual; Writing; base; cloud based; cohort; computing resources; data management; data mining; design; experience; health disparity; improved; novel; parallel computer; predictive modeling; programs; prospective; pulmonary function; respiratory; respiratory health; skills; software development; tool; usability

Multilevel Mediation Analysis for Investigating Effects of Environmental and Individual Risk Factors on Respiratory Diseases The link between particulate matter (PM) exposure and poor respiratory health is well established. Through Aim 3 of Project 1, the LSU Superfund Research Center postulates that environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) from hazardous waste sites, incinerators/chemical fires, and other sources is the missing mechanistic link between PM exposure and poor respiratory health. We will investigate the mediation of this association using hierarchical mediation analysis to decompose the air pollutant adverse respiratory effects into direct and indirect (EPFR-mediated) effects. We developed a multilevel mediation analysis method that allows for both longitudinal assessments of residential environments and individual risk factors to be jointly utilized in determining the mechanistic link between exposure to PM and poor respiratory health. By including measures of individual behavioral factors our methods are capable of explaining existing disparities in health outcomes. We have implemented our method as an R package (mlma) to provide the research community with open access to software for performing multilevel hierarchical mediation analysis. However, use of our R package does require knowledge of R, which limits its broader use in research. To address this limitation, we propose to collaborate with a software engineer at LSU to create an API for an interactive web implementation of our mediation software. We expect that this would greatly expand access to our methods, as no programming will be required. The proposed app, with its intuitive interactive visual interface, will allow users to easily read in datasets and build a conceptual mediation model framework using drag-and-drop functionality. We will also provide graphical tools such as directed acyclic graphs to allow users to visually interpret the analysis results. In addition, we will transform part of the computing to an efficient low-level computer language to improve computational speed and plan to use cloud computing resources so that R and associated software packages do not have to be installed on individual computers to perform the analysis.

研究环境和个人影响的多层次中介分析 呼吸系统疾病的危险因素 颗粒物 (PM) 暴露与呼吸系统健康不良之间存在密切联系 已确立的。通过项目 1 的目标 3，LSU 超级基金研究中心假设： 来自危险废物场的环境持久性自由基（EPFR）， 焚烧炉/化学火灾和其他来源是 PM 之间缺失的机制联系 暴露和呼吸系统健康状况不佳。我们将使用以下方式调查该协会的调解 分层中介分析将空气污染物对呼吸系统的不利影响分解为 直接和间接（EPFR 介导的）影响。 我们开发了一种多层次中介分析方法，允许纵向 对居住环境和个人风险因素的评估将被联合利用 确定接触 PM 与呼吸系统健康不良之间的机制联系。经过 包括我们的方法能够解释的个人行为因素的测量 健康结果方面现有的差异。 我们已将我们的方法实现为 R 包 (mlma)，以向研究社区提供 可以开放访问用于执行多级分层中介分析的软件。然而， 使用我们的 R 包确实需要 R 知识，这限制了它在研究中的更广泛应用。到 为了解决这个限制，我们建议与路易斯安那州立大学的软件工程师合作创建一个 用于我们的中介软件的交互式 Web 实施的 API。我们预计这将 极大地扩展了对我们方法的访问，因为不需要编程。提议的应用程序， 凭借其直观的交互式视觉界面，用户可以轻松地读取数据集并构建 使用拖放功能的概念中介模型框架。我们还将提供 图形工具，例如有向无环图，允许用户直观地解释分析 结果。另外，我们会将部分计算改造为高效的底层计算机 语言提高计算速度并计划使用云计算资源使R 和相关的软件包不必安装在单独的计算机上 执行分析。