Dean Yergens
  • Home
    • Calendar
    • Resume
    • Publications
  • Software
    • Synthesis >
      • Current Version
      • Synthesis Tutorials
    • RMail
    • Meta Data Repository
    • Patient-X
    • WebReports
    • HealthSim Calendar Gadget
    • MT4Health
    • Amazon ISBN 2 BibTex
    • ForestRanger
    • Alberta Sepsis Network
    • R Code
  • Global Health
    • Software
    • Philippines
    • Malawi
    • Zambia
    • Kenya
    • World Health Organization
    • Verbal Autopsy
    • Space Medicine
  • Computer Science
    • Robotics
    • Data Management
    • GPU Parallel Processing
    • Machine Learning
    • Visualization
    • Operating Systems
    • Programming Languages
    • Software Engineering
    • Simulations
    • Computer Configurations
    • Single Board Computers
    • IEEE RSS Feed
    • Glossary
    • Commercial Software Blog
  • Health Sciences
    • AI Walkthrough
    • Canadian Health System Books
    • Microsimulation
    • Graph Databases (Neo4J)
    • Administrative Data
    • CCHS Overview
    • Literature Reviews >
      • Newspaper Literature Reviews
      • Open Access
      • Statistics Utilization
      • Topic Modeling
      • Utilizing R for Literature Reviews
    • Statistics >
      • RMedicine (RClub) >
        • Blog
        • Forums
    • Health Informatics >
      • DataMergeR
      • Dashboards
      • Academic Software Development
      • Critical Care Systems
      • Patient Flow >
        • Patient Flow Simulations
        • Systems
      • HL7
    • Online Courses
    • Public Health Documentaries
    • Summer Institutes
    • WHO Internships
    • Conferences
  • Collection
    • Hardware
    • Software
    • Looking for
    • Analog Computers
    • Old Monitor Projects
    • Computer Books and Software
    • 3D Models
    • FrostByte
    • New Devices Vintage Computers
    • Floppy Music
    • History of Workstations
  • Other
    • Future Projects
    • Home Automation
    • Animatronics
    • Raspberry Pi
    • Deaner.AI
    • CANMAR
    • EpiComics
    • The Art of Deaner
    • LED Cube 8x8x8
    • Ambient Devices
    • EasyButton
    • African Art
    • Movie Posters
    • Wildlife Photography
    • Coursera
    • Neat Companies
  • Blog

Application of Automated Statistical Methods applied to Public Health Surveys

Public Health Surveys present valuable information about disease profiles in the community.  However, this information is often 

We present an approach for automating the reporting of standard Epidemiological methods as applied to Public Health Survey datasets.  We first examined the academic literature (PubMed) to see what statistical methods were applied to several surveys.  We also looked at how this information was displayed in the form of tables and figures.  

While conducting this research we ran into several issues with automating the analysis, such as the small sample sizes when segmenting different outcome and exposures.  These issues needed to be addressed as when automating an approach is taken we need to account for all cases.  Another issue that we are encountering is cpu performance as by automating the methods can lead to hundreds of thousands of statistical tests being preformed.

Several researchers in the epidemiological community have criticized this automated approach with the typical first response that "research isn't conducted this way" or that research needs to be hypothesis driven.  However, our approach would be the following: 

Methodology - we are not changing the methodological approach and using new techniques, but instead are just automating the application of standard epidemiological methods already applied to these survey datasets.

Economics - we feel that automating standard methods improves the economics for research, as funding/time is not being utilized to answer questions that could be automated.  

Research - we also feel that by automating the standard methods, that research can be pushed in new areas leading to new methods that could potentially be automated as well. 

Validation/Reliability - we feel that an automated approach would improve the reliability of the research produced, as we currently have a research environment where reproducibility of research is a major issue. 


Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS)

Updated September 1, 2012

Behaviour Risk Factor Survey System (BRFSS)

National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)