Graduate Academic Programs

Introduction: United States emergency departments (ED) visit rates for nonfatal self-harm increased by 42% from 2001 to 2016. Previous suicide mortality research has provided conflicting evidence on the use of suicide-related Internet searches as a surveillance tool for self-harm and suicidal ideation. However, few have used rigorous approaches to account for autocorrelation at the aggregate level, and none have focused on Internet searches related to suicide prevention.

Methods and results: Over a 9-year study period (2007-2015), suicidality-...

Suicides, overdoses, and drug-related liver diseases (deaths of despair) are greatly elevated in the mining and extraction industries compared to other industries. To better understand the drivers of these deaths, we examined suicide or overdose mortality in relation to age at worker exit among a retrospective cohort of 11,009 male mine workers from the Diesel Exhaust in Miners Study II.

Methods:

We calculated age-adjusted mortality rates (1947–2015) and estimated hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) for suicide or overdose death in relation to...

Background.—Structural racism’s influence on workforce policies and practices presents possible upstream targets for assessing and reducing racial health disparities. This study is the first to examine workforce racial diversity in association with racial disparities in cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes.

Methods.—This retrospective cohort study of 39,693 hourly autoworkers from three Michigan automobile plants, includes 75 years of follow-up (1941–2015). Workforce racial diversity (percent Black autoworkers) was a plant and year level variable. Annual exposure was cumulated over...

The parametric g-formula is a causal inference method that appropriately adjusts for time-varying confounding affected by prior exposure. Like all parametric methods, it assumes correct model specification, usually assessed by comparing the observed outcome with the simulated outcome under no intervention (natural course). However, it is unclear how to evaluate natural course performance and whether other variables should also be considered. We reviewed current practices for evaluating model misspecification in applications of parametric g-formula. To illustrate the pitfalls of...