OFFERINGS OF THE CONSULTATION GROUP
Services offered by the Research Consultation Group are listed below. Investigators who want to avail themselves of these services should seek consultation EARLY in the process of conducting a research project. The sooner one makes contact with the group, the sooner one can benefit from consultation. Investigators should contact the Research Consultation Group at least 3 to 4 weeks before work needs to be done. In addition, all research projects must have an LU number to indicate that the requisite institutional reviews have been properly conducted.
The Research Consultation Group is intended to be a resource to faculty, fellows, residents, and students at LUMC. In order for the service to be viable, it will be necessary to operate on a fee-for-service basis. Hence, consultation fees will be discussed with investigators prior to any work being done. Fees will be determined by the type and scope of work required.
RESEARCH CONSULTATION
Investigators can request assistance with:
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Development of research protocols
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Study design, including experiments and quasi-experiments
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Grant proposals, manuscripts and presentations
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Design of data collection forms and systems
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Design of mail and telephone surveys
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Data management and quality assurance
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Statistical analysis and interpretation
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Sample size estimation
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The visual display of quantitative information (i.e., statistical graphs and tables)
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Analysis of national and other publicly available datasets (e.g., NHANES, Framingham, CDC Wonder)
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The evaluation of human service programs (e.g., patient education and various types of training programs)
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Analysis of genetic data (i.e., gene array, linkage, association studies)
If you would like assistance with statistical genetics, genomics or proteomics, please contact Dr. Zhu in the Center for Genetic Epidemiology in the Department of Preventive Medicine.
RESEARCH EDUCATION
Training programs in research methodology and statistical analysis can be designed for faculty, fellows and residents. These programs will be tailored to the needs of individual departments.
eCONSULTS
The Research Consultation Group website directs investigators to other sites on the internet that are designed to improve one's research knowledge and skills. The Supercourse link below will direct you to a collection of slide presentations that is maintained by faculty of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. To date, the supercourse has brought together 10,300 faculty from 151 countries who have contributed 1,400 lectures. The Supercourse link will take you to a page that organizes lectures by topic: Epidemiology, Specific Diseases, Public Health, Disease Monitoring & Telecommunications, and Biostatistics. We also have a link to an effect size calculator.
Work is currently underway to include links within LUMC that will present topics not covered by the Supercourse. At present, there are links that provide examples of an NIH grant application and a manuscript that is ready to be submitted for publication. In the future there will be short presentations on how to prepare a dataset for analysis using Excel; how to interpret boxplots; and how to properly interpret p values. In addition, there will be short presentations to help investigators learn more about mainline statistical procedures (e.g., Student's t-test, analysis of variance, multiple regression and correlation analysis); the logic of hypothesis testing; and the principles for creating well designed statistical graphs and tables.
CLINICAL RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES
The Research Consultation Group holds a seminar series on the second Wednesday of every month where methodological and statistical issues are discussed in a roundtable fashion. The seminars are informal and are open to anyone on campus. Investigators who are receiving services from the Research Consultation Group are encouraged to attend these seminars in order to learn more about conducting research and to discus the analytical and methodological challenges they are facing in their work.
How to Contact the Research Consultation Group
To request research assistance, discuss training needs, or to learn more about the seminar series, please contact our Project Coordinator Cindy Leman at (708) 327-9012
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