Joint Initiative for Causal Inference
Sponsor/Partner: Novo Nordisk
Project Description/Goals: To create an international powerhouse for statistical methods within casual inference to be used on RCT and observational data with a hub at Copenhagen University as well as at University of California, Berkeley by developing, implementing and disseminating methods for exploiting vast, new health datasets using state-of-the art advances in machine learning, causal inference, and statistical theory, and to build industry-wide consensus around best practices for answering pressing health questions in the modern methodological and data ecosystem.
CTML Faculty Involved: Maya Petersen M.D. Ph.D., Mark van der Laan Ph.D., Laura Balzer PhD., and Andrew Mertens PhD.
Gilead-Berkeley Global Health Equity Initiative
Sponsor/Partner: Gilead Scienes
Project Description/Goals: The UC Berkeley School of Public Health and Gilead Sciences have launched the Gilead-Berkeley Global Health Equity Initiative to address real-world public health issues. Funded at $4.5 million for three years, the program focuses on infectious and non-communicable diseases and aims to enhance research, data management, and executive education. The initiative has three components: collaborations in applied research, involving doctoral students and junior faculty at the Center for Global Health; collaborations in biostatistics and data management under the CTML - Center for Targeted Machine Learning and Causal Inference and executive education.
CTML Faculty Involved: Alan Hubbard Ph.D., Maya Petersen M.D. Ph.D., Mark van der Laan Ph.D., Laura Balzer Ph.D., Alejandro Schuler Ph.D., and Andrew Mertens PhD.
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: Maya Petersen M.D. Ph.D. and Mark van der Laan Ph.D.
SEARCH Community Precision Health Study
Sponsor/Partner: NIH National Institute of Health (Subaward through UCSF)
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: Maya Petersen M.D. Ph.D. and Laura Balzer Ph.D.
Toxic Substances in the Environment (Superfund)
Sponsor/Partner: NIEHS
Project Description/Goals: Identify problems associated with hazardous waste sites that have proven intractable to current methods, applying a new approach called ‘exposomics’ to address these problems and employ novel cutting-edge scientific methods and direct engagement with key stakeholders and communities in a concerted effort to make a public health impact.
CTML Faculty Involved: Alan Hubbard Ph.D.
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 Ph.D.
Strategic antiretroviral therapy and HIV testing for youth in rural Africa (SEARCH Youth)
Sponsor/Partner: NIH National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (Subaward through UCSF)
Project Description/Goals: Improve the health and well-being of adolescents and young adults (10-24 years) with HIV in rural Uganda and Kenya. Results from the project's first phase are available in Mwangwa, et al.
CTML Faculty Involved: Laura Balzer Ph.D.