Ongoing Projects

Joint Initiative for Causal Inference

Sponsor/Partner: Novo Nordisk and Copenhagen University

Project Description/Goals: International powerhouse for causal inference aimed at answering pressing statistical questions using both randomized control and observational studies.

CTML Faculty Involved: Maya Petersen M.D. Ph.D. and Mark van der Laan Ph.D.

iMIC

Sponsor/Partner: University of Manitoba (Prime: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)

Project Description/Goals: The International Milk Composition Consortium's (iMic) study goal is to disentangle the complex relationship of breastmilk composition and other relevant factors on childhood development, including factors that increase the risk of stunting and wasting.

CTML Faculty Involved: Alan Hubbard

UNITE

Sponsor/Partner: California Department of Public Health

Project Description/Goals: Using Targeted Learning methods to estimate causal models, the study goal is to produce the only existing database that comprehensively assesses both fatal and non-fatal firearm injuries and links them to social determinants of health across various California regions.

CTML Faculty Involved: Alan Hubbard

Socio-spatial Networks and TB Infection in Youth in Rural Uganda

Sponsor/Partner: NIH National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases

Project Description/Goals: To characterize, on a population-level, where and from which social network youth acquire TB infections and to assess variations throughout stages in the early life-course (early childhood: 1-5 years; school-age: 6-11 years; adolescence: 12-18 years).

CTML Faculty Involved: Maya Petersen M.D. Ph.D. , Mark van der Laan Ph.D.

Harnessing Data Science to Promote Equity in Injury and Surgery for Africa

Sponsor/Partner:  NIH National Institutes of Health - Miscellaneous

Project Description/Goals: The project consists of four major projects: resrarching a cluster-based algorithm to estimate socieconomic status for health equtiy surveillance in sub-Saharan Africa, using data-adaptive methods to optimize follow up of injured patients in Cameroon, developing the Data Management and Analysis Core, and creating a Capacity Building Core.

CTML Faculty Involved: Alan Hubbard

Enteric Pathogen Force of Infection among Children using Serology

Sponsor/Partner: NIH National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases

Project Description/Goals: High resolution measurements of pathogen infection in stool were paired with antibody response to i) verify that seroincidence estimated from IgG response qualitatively reflects incidence based on infection in stool; ii) develop new methods to estimate force of infection for enteric pathogens in low-resource settings that combine information from PCR testing in stool and antibody response in blood (IgG); and, iii) develop methods to estimate enteric pathogen force of infection from cross sectional surveys.

CTML Faculty Involved: Alan Hubbard

Causal Effects of Endogenous and Exogenous Risk Factors for Wasting

Sponsor/Partner: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Project Description/Goals: Scalable online super-learner for predicting health outcome phenotypes and an online scalable super learner of an optimal individualized treatment rule for improving these health outcomes.

CTML Faculty Involved: Mark van der Laan Ph.D., Alan Hubbard Ph.D., Jeremy Coyle Ph.D. Andrew Mertens Ph.D., Ivana Malenica

Adaptive Strategies for Preventing & Treating Lapses of Retention in Adult HIV Care II (AdaPT-R)

Sponsor/Partner: WUSTL (Prime: NIMH)

Project Description/Goals: 

CTML Faculty Involved:  Maya Petersen M.D. Ph.D. 

Multi-sectorial Approach to Address Persistent Drivers of the HIV Epidemic in East Africa

Sponsor/Partner: SMNIH

Project Description/Goals: The Sustainable East Africa Research in Community Health (SEARCH) consortium designs and tests evidence based treatment and prevention interventions that will guide a global effort to end AIDS using a multi-disease, multi-sector approach.  

CTML Faculty Involved:

Targeted Learning using Adaptive Designs for HIV Epidemic Control in East Africa

Sponsor/Partner: NIH/NIAID

Project Description/Goals: This project leverages the rich data increasingly generated in the course of the HIV epidemic response, and applies targeted machine learning to advance adaptive design and analytic approaches.

CTML Faculty Involved:

Local Epidemic Modeling for the San Francisco Department of Public Health

Sponsor/Partner: Heluna Health(Prime: SFDPH)

Project Description/Goals: New initiative to offer universal testing to students, staff, and faculty as they return to the UC Berkeley campus and to develop rapid response protocols and effective infection control.  

CTML Faculty Involved: Maya Petersen M.D. Ph.D. 

An Adaptive Strategy for Preventing and Treating Lapses of Retention in HIV Care for Adolescents (A4A)

Sponsor/Partner: WUSTL (Prime: NINR)

Project Description/Goals: The study goal is to improve HIV engagement in care and treatment outcomes among adolescents and young adults through adaptive strategies in Africa.

CTML Faculty Involved: Maya Petersen M.D. Ph.D. 

Collaborative Community Networks to Optimize Implementation of Low Barrier COVID-19 Testing Efforts among Diverse Latinx Populations in Northern California

Sponsor/Partner: NIH/NIAID

Project Description/Goals: Evaluate community-engaged approaches to scale low-barrier COVID-19 testing for Latinx communities and evaluate retesting strategies for priority groups in Latinx communities at increased risk of infection.

CTML Faculty Involved: Maya Petersen M.D. Ph.D. 

Enhancing Causal Inference in the Sentinel system: An Evaluation of Targeted Learning and Propensity Scores for Confounding Control in Drug Safety

Sponsor/Partner: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

Project Description/Goals: The project involves selecting safety analysis type data sets; using outcome blind parts of the data to specify 1) a statistical model; 2) causal estimand, and 3) set up a superlearner and TMLE-based statistical analysis plan (SAP). Subsequently, the project involves carrying out the SAP and interpreting the results

CTML Faculty Involved: Mark van der Laan Ph.D.

ICLIC-MS for Enhancing Outcomes Research and Clinical Care in Multiple Sclerosis

Sponsor/Partner: NIH

Project Description/Goals: Our team has developed and validated an assisted web-based interface for longitudinal clinical data collection of cognitive function measures, physical disability and depression measures that are not reliably captured in the electronic health record (EHR) of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. We will integrate several sources ofpatient data including genomic, clinical and EHR for 3,000 individuals to facilitate research and improve clinical care.

CTML Faculty Involved: Mark van der Laan Ph.D.

Evaluation of Complex Interventions on Drug (re)fill Behavior using Electronic Healthcare Data

Sponsor/Partner: PCORI (Subawardfrom Kaiser)

Project Description/Goals: 1) the development of TMLE and IPW estimators of the effects of stochastic interventions on medication (re)fill behaviors with large EHR data, 2) the conduct of simulation studies to evaluate the properties of these estimation procedures, and 3) the conduct of secondary data analyses to evaluate the applicability and relevance of these approaches with large EHR data.

CTML Faculty Involved: Mark van der Laan Ph.D.

Community Violence and Disparities in Maternal and Infant Health: Effects and Mechanisms

Sponsor/Partner: NIH

Project Description/Goals: To inform population health and clinical care approaches to address maternal and infant health disparities by race/ethnicity and foreign-born status, and motivate violence prevention programs that both reduce immediate injuries and deaths, and ultimately improve maternal and infant health and reduce health disparities in the US.

CTML Faculty Involved: Mark van der Laan Ph.D.