Epidemiology
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Selected Cluster Projects
Chronic Disease Epidemiology
The Metropolitan Breast Cancer Study has collected DNA and cancer data on hundreds of families with breast cancer to study breast cancer genes. The Long Island Breast Cancer Study is a large population-based case-control study that aims to uncover risk factors, especially environmental, for breast cancer.
Oral infections and atherosclerosis
INVEST is a multi-school and multi-department study that addresses the contribution of oral infections to progression of atherosclerosis in a randomly selected cohort of participants in Northern Manhattan.
The Breast Cancer Quality of Care Study has collected data on over 1,000 women treated for breast cancer and is analyzing what factors predict the appropriate receipt of chemotherapy and hormonal therapy in these women.
The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)
MESA is a medical research study involving more than 6,000 men and women from six communities in the United States. The Columbia University, cohort, comprising older Hispanic residents of Washington Heights, has contributed extensive findings for risk factors in this underserved population for cardiac disease, stroke, and pulmonary disease.
Epidemiology Innovation
With the long term goal of promoting better physical and psychosocial functioning of children in South Africa, the ASENZE study in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, aims to determine how the ability of children with neurodevelopmental disorders to function cognitively and socially is influenced by health related, contextual, and psychosocial factors, including caregiver mental health and substance abuse.
Senior Fitness
A trans-disciplinary team in the Departments of Epidemiology and Medicine is collaborating with Atria Senior Living Group, an assisted living provider, to promote best-practices in fall prevention in potentially frail older adults using a sustainable evidence-based program.
Injury Free Coalition for Kids
Injury Free comprises hospital-based, community oriented programs whose efforts are anchored in research, education, and advocacy. The coalition includes 42 sites in 40 cities nationwide. www.injuryfree.org
Columbia International eHealth Laboratory
A collaborative effort involving the Department of Epidemiology, the Department of Biomedical Informatics and the Earth Institute, Columbia International Ehealth Laboratory designs, develops and implements innovative information technology in resource-poor settings. It provides technical support for the Millennium Villages Project in ten countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, while building a multilingual, multinational patient-level data warehouse.
Anesthesiology – Epidemiology Collaborative Projects
Epidemiology faculty members jointly appointed in the Department of Anesthesiology are conducting a series of projects addressing prescription drug use, polydrug use, and medical marijuana use as risks for motor vehicle and other injury. Additional injury related projects include an evaluation of Safe Routes to School and the impact of anesthetic agents as potent neurotoxins to children’s brains.
Infectious Disease Epidemiology
PREDICT, a large program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Emerging Pandemic Threats Program, aims to develop a global warning system for newly emerging diseases and to anticipate and assess emerging infectious diseases that move between animals and people in order to prevent the next global pandemic.
PHARM-Link Studies, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, include large-scale pharmacy-based interventions aimed at connecting drug users and other high risk populations to medical care and social services, using pharmacies as an HIV-testing venue, and most recently, using pharmacies to help drug users gain access to antiretroviral therapy to help prevent HIV acquisition using a pharmacist-clinician partnership. These studies use a community based participatory research model and target the individual, social, and structural environment.
Lifecourse Epidemiology
Studies of the Dutch Hunger Winter have a long and storied history in our Department, with landmark findings about prenatal famine and schizophrenia, and new work examining epigenetic changes related to periconceptional exposures.
Cluster faculty members make use of a variety of remarkable multisite pregnancy cohorts for studies of early determinants of health and disease over the life course. They draw on birth cohorts established in 1959-1966 to seek prenatal and childhood determinants of neuropsychiatric, breast cancer, cardiovascular, and sperm quality outcomes as well as the emergence of health disparities over the lifecourse. They draw on more recently enrolled cohorts (e.g., the Norwegian birth cohort of 109,000) to study a range of outcomes at birth and in early childhood. The range of
in utero exposures is broad, including smoke, specific infections, micronutrients, and chemicals from the environment.
Psych/Neuro Epidemiology
Developmental psychopathology and child psychiatric epidemiology
A number of projects in the Department focus on deviations in development that lead to mental disorders, violence, suicide, and other high risk behaviors in youth. This work has a strong global mental health focus and includes research on population based, birth cohort, and high risk samples. The child psychiatric epidemiology research group, in particular, has been actively engaged in international randomized controlled trials focused on youth suicide and school dropout.
Gene-environment interplay and psychiatric disorders
Cross-cutting collaborations among several faculty in the Department focus on how environmental exposures across the life course and at multiple levels modify the role of genetic factors in the onset and course of psychiatric and substance use disorders. One major focus of this work is on identifying the biologic mechanisms through which the urban environment produces mental disorders.
Genetics of Alzheimer’s disease in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico
This project investigates genetic factors in the development of Alzheimer’s disease among the Caribbean Hispanic population in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and New York City, a population at a threefold higher risk for developing the disease than Caucasians.
Military deployment and psychiatric disorder
Several projects in the Department focus on the factors across the lifecourse that intersect with military experience to influence the mental health of soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This work builds on long-standing Department expertise in work with military populations starting with the Vietnam War.
The Northern Manhattan Study (NOMAS) investigates risk factors, occurrence, and outcome of stroke in Northern Manhattan’s multiethnic population. Created in 1990, NOMAS is the first study of its kind to focus on stroke risk factors in whites, blacks, and Hispanics living in the same community. The initiative is also committed to developing better stroke prevention programs to improve the health of the surrounding community.
Social Epidemiology
Examining the intersection and mutual influence of socioeconomic status, cognitive ability, and health itself over the lifecourse, this study funded by the National Institute for Children’s Health and Development, brings together a broad interdisciplinary group from across CUMC to assess
health outcomes in depression, lung function, obesity and other indicators of health.
Expressed emotion and stigma among Chinese-Americans with schizophrenia
Investigators examine the specific social and cultural factors that improve the course of schizophrenia among a high-risk group of Chinese immigrants, as well as how stigma unfolds among a group that is at risk for developing psychosis.
Stigma associated with a ‘high-risk’ for psychosis
This study addresses the longitudinal trajectory of stigma among a High Risk for Psychosis (HRP) group, as well as the neurocognitive and social cognitive underpinnings of stigma perceptions in this group. We examine how these factors may adversely impact psychological, social, and developmental outcomes among HRP individuals.
Mental health consequences of the US economic downturn
Investigators have been awarded a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to conduct a rapid collaborative assessment of evidence on the mental health impact of economic contractions and to identify opportunities for government interventions.
