This dissertation develops methodology for data-adaptive estimation of parameters defined on longitudinal data structures, while this abstract serves as an introduction to the material covered herein. The dissertation is organized into three related, but distinct chapters. Each chapter considers a similar data structure, ...

Introduction: Obesity and overweight are a critical public health problem in the United States1,2 and worldwide3. Obesity is affected by multiple factors including socioeconomic status (SES), built environments including opportunities for active transportation and access to supermarkets or fast food outlets, as well as ...

Introduction: Men represent an underserved population in sub-Saharan Africa with respect to HIV testing and treatment. Identification and treatment of HIV-infected men are vital both to improve their health and prevent onward transmission to their partners, especially for men in sero-discordant partnerships. One means of ...

<underline>Introduction</underline>: Chronic lower limb ulcers (LLU) impact morbidity, mortality, and quality of life. Although evidence-based (EB) care guidelines exist for most ulcer types, the literature on the impact of ulcer care component on time to healing is sparse. The purpose of this study is to investigate the ...

Introduction: A role for antioxidants in prevention of Parkinson disease has been proposed, however, epidemiologic evidence supporting this assertion has been inconclusive. Ninety percent of vitamin D in adults is produced in vivo related to ultraviolet type B exposure. This creates a plausible role for outdoor work as a ...

Background: HIV/AIDS continues to be a devastating disease of great global importance despite the fact that antiretroviral therapy (ART) is a proven effective treatment. In the last decade, there have been massive efforts to improve access to antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) around the world. Beyond the logistics of obtaining ...

Introduction: Attrition of patients from care is a critical barrier toward an effective scale-up of HIV services in Sub-Saharan Africa. As part of the HIV care cascade, pre-Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) care is an important pre-requisite for early initiation of ART and optimal clinical outcomes. However, the body of evidence ...

Background: Fewer than half of all medical interventions in use today are supported by clinical evidence. Despite allocating more than $11 billion each year to support clinical research, federal funding for medical research lacks a coordinated system for prioritizing and allocating resources to efficiently address these ...

Introduction: The Angolan Ministry of Health is scaling-up HIV treatment and authorized training nurses to expand their role in delivery of care and treatment to HIV patients through task-shifting. A training program was implemented in one province from May to September of 2012, which included didactic training, rotations ...

In recent decades, there has been an expanded effort to examine the adverse effects of political violence on the health of civilian populations; substantial evidence now points to the effects of political violence on outcomes like PTSD, anxiety, and a variety of physical health symptoms. Despite the variety of risks inherent ...