Public Health Statistics and Risk Assessment

The section on “Public Health Statistics and Risk Assessment” is interested in the analysis of putative factors related to disease risk and public health outcomes. This includes the examination of environmental, behavioral, viral, chemical, genetic, and dietary data originating from laboratory studies, public health surveys, clinical trials, observational/epidemiological studies, medical records, and government/public sources. Outcomes may include cancer, neurological conditions, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, substance abuse, respiratory/pulmonary disease, fatigue, pain, disrupted sleep, and musculoskeletal disorders. The section editors encourage authors to submit summary and overview manuscripts on health statistics, as well as policy assessments of disease risks. Modelling and methodologic manuscripts from allied fields such as engineering, geology, epidemiology, mathematics, statistics, data science, medicine, and bioinformatics are also welcome.

Topics of interest to a general public health/epidemiology audience include:

• Differences in disease risk by country, geographic region, and climate variation
• Seasonal patterns in disease risk
• Reducing health disparities in disease risk
• The effects of physical, aerobic, and strength training on reducing fail risk among the elderly
• Risk of antibiotic misuse in development countries
• Artificial light and the risk of breast cancer
• Survival of at-risk infants treated at high- versus low-tier medical facilities
• Lung cancer treatment and mortality risk statistics
• Adverse childhood experiences and the risk of emotional problems in adulthood 
• Prevalence and risk factors for overweight and obesity
• Gulf War exposures and long-term risk of medical/psychological effects
• Food insecurity and risk of mental illness
• Heavy lifting and risk of orthopaedic factures among women factory workers
• Risk factors influencing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases
• Depression and cancer risk
• Increasing risk of diabetes and metabolic syndrome in low-resource countries
• Gender dysphoria and risk of physical assault
• Brain tumor risk and lifestyle behaviors

Example statistical analysis and risk modelling manuscripts of interest to a quantitative public health audience include:

• Accelerated failure time models of disease risk
• Hidden Markov modeling of stationary and non-stationary risks
• Causal mediation risk analysis
• Risk tolerance measures
• Bootstrapping and Monte Carlo simulations for risk prediction
• Non-parametric risk assessment
• Penalized competing risk regression
• Residual lifetime risk measures
• Computation of power and sample size for complex risk models
• Meta-analytic assessment of risk uncertainty
• Multivariate and dual-frailty risk models
• Meta-analytic assessment of risk uncertainty
• Stochastic inverse modelling for risk sensitivity analysis
• Competing risks
• Counterfactual explanation of health risks