Sally W. Thurston received an MS in Natural Resources from Cornell University in 1992 followed by a Ph.D. in Statistics from Harvard University in 1997. She subsequently did a postdoctoral fellowship in Biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Thurston is Professor of Biostatistics and Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, where she collaborates on many studies related to environmental health science and is Principal Investigator of an NIEHS-funded T32 grant, Training in Environmental Health Biostatistics. Motivated by her collaborations, Dr. Thurston’s methodological research includes hierarchical models for multiple outcomes and models for multiple exposures within a Bayesian framework.
Talk: A Novel Approach to Assessing the Joint Effects of Mercury and Fish Consumption on Neurodevelopment in the New Bedford Cohort
Abstract: Fish contains many beneficial nutrients including polyunsaturated fatty acids, selenium, iodine, and vitamin D. However, in most populations fish consumption is the primary source of exposure to methylmercury (MeHg), a known neurotoxicant, making it complicated to understand health risks and benefits from fish consumption. One approach to assess the joint effects of fish consumption and MeHg is to include both fish intake and a biomarker of MeHg exposure as covariates in the same outcome model. However, resulting estimates do not reflect the independent impact of accumulated MeHg or fish exposure. In this talk I will explain the pitfalls of the standard models and present a novel but intuitive approach to assess the joint effects of fish consumption and MeHg on an outcome, which requires estimating average MeHg per fish meal consumed. When applied to data from the New Bedford Cohort in Massachusetts (n=361), results suggest that the association of maternal fish intake with offspring neurodevelopment varies depending on the average MeHg levels in the consumed fish. This is joint work with Susan Korrick and David Ruppert.