"Beard Hall", a Base Model, and a Christmas Baby

Jenny, my wife, came out to North Carolina for a visit about 2 1/2 weeks ago. We drove over to the University of North Carolina (at Chapel Hill) to see if we could find the Gilling's School of Public Health. We drove around the block a couple of times, but eventually found it. It was very exciting, but a little disappointing at the same time because all of the doors were locked (the same thing happened when we drove by the SAS campus in Cary). I guess you have to swipe your ID card after 5:00 p.m. and on weekends to get into the buildings. The best part, though, was what we found two buildings down from the SPH at the School of Pharmacy: Beard Hall. That's right, there's a building at UNC with my last name on it! I took a picture with the camera in my cell phone (yeah, I have one of those now too, but I am still having problems figuring out how to check my voice mail with it). Maybe that means they'll admit me to the Epidemiology program because of a (non-existent) family relationship. (I also recently found out that there is/was a famous stastician at the University of Washington with the last name of Beard, so maybe I can cash in on that one too).

The NIEHS is great. The Epidemiology Branch was reviewed over the last two days (a pretty big deal because a bad review could mean less funding). They brought in a bunch of epidemiologists and statisticians, primarily from acadamia, to review the branch. Each of the eight principal investigators gave a talk summarizing their work from the last four years (the review period). They then had to answer questions from the board of reviewers and were given feedback in a private session with the board after that. It was a really neat way to hear all about what is actually going on here in our branch. I have been surprised how much biology, especially genetics, is a focus of the research that goes on at the NIEHS. I think six of the eight PIs in our branch have done something with genetics in the past four years. While all of the talks were interesting, the three that were probably the most interesting (maybe because I could sort of understand them) all dealt with, I can't believe I am typing this, women's health/reproductive epidemiology. The presentation by Dr. Donna Baird, the PI of the Women's Health Epidemiology Group, about fibroid growth in the uterus was especially interesting. The Sister Study, a large cohort study of 50,000 sisters of women who have or have had breast cancer (being lead by Dr. Dale Sandler and Dr. Clarice Weinberg), was also a very interesting presentation (man, the more I think about it, I bet Ashley and Judy would absolutely love it here). Just as an FYI, apparently the National Children's Study is no longer beng partly directed by our branch. I guess the funding went extramural to NIEHS, so I haven't been able to find out more about that.

As far as my analysis goes, I finally have a base model. My suicide analysis has been a very iterative (and interesting) process. I don't know how many models I have fit, evaluated, refit with recoded variables, and reevaluated, but it's a lot and I'm loving every minute of it (this has seriously got to be one of the best jobs in the world, in my opinion). The base model is important because we will adjust our odds ratios for all of the variables contained in it (like age adjustment, but with multivariate logistic regression models). Now that we have a base model, we just have to add the pesticides into the model one at a time and estimate their odds ratios. I was able to start adding pesticides to the base model before the branch review and didn't found anything yet, but who knows what I'll find.

Well, I hope I have driven the suspense up with the title of my blog post and by waiting until the fourth paragraph to get to those last two words of the title. Yes, Jenny and I are expecting our first child (which means I actually may be attending BYU's Women's Health Class, at least some of it, in the fall). Our baby is due, get this, on December 25--Christmas Day (crazy, huh?). Apparently, though, babies have only about a 17% chance of arriving on their due dates, so it probably won't arrive that day. Jenny is 13 weeks along and went to the first appointment a little while ago. They did that doppler thing, so Jenny heard our baby's heart beat and taped it for me (she later played it for me over the phone). It was 160/80, which is normal. Fortunately, I'll be home before the gender ultrasound. We're very excited, but nervous too. My mom, though, has apparently gone crazy. I guess she called my aunt and taunted her by saying, "My grandbabies are going to be cuter than yours!" This will be the first grandchild on both sides of the family, so maybe that's why she is acting like that.

Well, I could write a whole lot more, but I should get some sleep. Sorry to tell you all the exciting news through a blog post instead of in person. Happy interning!