Study Variables. Based on the expectation that the concentration of LA in tissue will tend to increase over time as a function of the long-term cumulative exposure pattern, it is unlikely that tissue burdens will vary substantially due to short-term fluctuations in media concentrations. Thus, the timing of the animal collection is primarily based on ease of sample collection and permit requirements. Collection of fish occurred in August 2012 and collection of game animals will likely occur in the fall of 2012.
Study Variables. The unit of analysis was a comparison be- tween a control and a treatment phase. There were 133 comparisons, yielding a mean of 1.7 compar- isons across 80 studies. The first author reviewed all studies and scored each comparison on the fol- lowing study variables: (a) year of publication, (b) participants’ age in years, (c) gender, (d) diagnosis,
Study Variables. The outcome of interest was survival time, measured in months and defined as the time from cancer diagnosis until death, study endpoint or until censored. The study follow-up endpoint was December 31, 2012. Survival was limited to a maximum of 60 months. The vital status variable classified death from CRC as an event. Our exposure of interest indicating a measure of residential geography at the time of cancer diagnosis was obtained by linking residential county at diagnosis to the 2013 Rural-Urban Continuum codes created by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). All US counties were classified into 9 subgroups based on population size, degree of urbanization and adjacency to a metropolitan area (55). For the purpose of this study and in order to address our hypothesis, we reclassified our exposure variable based on proximity to a metropolitan county area into 3 categories: 1) metropolitan area, 2) non-metropolitan area adjacent to a metropolitan county, 3) non-metropolitan area not adjacent to a metropolitan county. The SEER cancer registries were categorized into 4 U.S. regions - Northeast, Midwest, South and West, based on the widely used United States Census Bureau classification (Figure 2). Major risk factors identified in recent studies to be associated with survival outcomes of colorectal adenocarcinoma were identified as control covariates. These variables of interest identified in SEER included: sex, age at diagnosis, race and ethnicity, marital status at diagnosis, insurance status, poverty level, histologic type, stage and grade at diagnosis, primary cancer site and surgery type. Sex was classified as male and female. Age at diagnosis was categorized as 20-44, 45-59, 60-74 and ≥75 years, race as white, black, other (American Indian, Alaskan Native, Asian/Pacific Islander) and unknown, and ethnicity as Hispanic and Non-Hispanic. Marital status was re-categorized into 3 groups: married; unmarried, including single (never married), divorced, widowed or separated; and unknown. Socioeconomic status (SES) was assessed using health insurance status - insured, uninsured or any Medicaid and unknown. We also assessed SES using the percentage of persons below the poverty level based on Census American Community Survey (ACS) 2007-2011 classification and categorized this as <10%, 10-19.9% and ≥20%. Histologic type was classified based on the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, 3rd edition (ICD-O-3) and recoded into 5 categories...
Study Variables. The variables used in these analyses are described and defined in further detail below.
Study Variables. Several variables included in this study are the administrative region and nationality. Others include the age group and the gender of the participants. The nationality consists of the KSA nationals and foreigners (non-Saudis). The age groups were divided into five: less than one year, 1 – 5 years, 5 – 15 years, 16 – 44 years, and > 45 years of age. This study included data from different administrative regions across KSA (Northern Border, Riyadh, Aseer, Eastern, and Quassim. Others are Najran, Makkah, Al-Jouf, Hail, Xxxxxxx, Al-Baha, and Madinah in addition to Jazan). Statistical Analyses Descriptive analyses were performed to determine the burden of HBV in the population and the rate of disease occurrence. We calculated the incidence rates (IRs) per 100,000 persons > five years (2014 – 2018) based on the different variables (i.e., gender, age, nationality, and administrative region). Similarly, the number of cases was calculated over the period 2014 –2018. Xxxx-Xxxxxxx test is a nonparametric test used to determine if there is a significant difference between two independent groups. This comparison was based upon the confidence interval for the sample mean calculated. If the p-value is less than 0.05, there is a significant difference between the two values at that 95 % confidence level. Ethics This research involved secondary data analyses without personal identifiers. Thus, it did not meet the definition of human subject’s research and was classified as exempt by the Emory University Institutional Review Board.
Study Variables. 4.13.1. Independent variable • Education and cultural factors • Age, sex, religion • Socioeconomic status • Knowledge and attitude of family planning
Study Variables. For ease of implementation, duff samples will be collected from the same general area where tree bark samples are collected.
Study Variables. The primary exposure of interest was residence in a state that expanded Medicaid (expansion state) vs. a state that did not (non-expansion state) The main outcome under study was overall survival (OS) with survival time, defined as months from diagnosis to death from any cause or last contact. Cause-specific mortality is not available in the NCDB. Other participant characteristics included year of diagnosis, age at diagnosis, race, sex, median household income (based on patient’s zip code and American Community Survey data), educational attainment (based on percentage of adults who did not graduate from high school residing in the patient’s zip code), and rural/urban/metro residency (based on patients’ zip code). Clinical stage of esophageal cancer was defined based on the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) guidelines. The AJCC guidelines on staging consist of four different types of staging: clinical staging, pathological staging, post-therapy or post-neoadjuvant therapy staging, and restaging. The T, N, M staging system, maintained by the AJCC, is the classification system tool for doctors to stage different cancer types based on standardized criteria based on the extent of the primary tumor (T), the extent of spread to the lymph nodes (N), and presence of metastasis (M). The T, N, and M categories analyze characteristics from tumor/lymph node/metastasis cannot be evaluated to the size of the tumor and extent of spread. Once T, N, and M are determined, they are combined, and an overall stage of 0, I, II, III, IV is assigned. 72 Statistical Analysis Descriptive statistics, expressed as frequencies and percentages, were generated to compare study participants residing in expansion and non-expansion states with respect to distributions of demographic, socioeconomic characteristics. Multivariable survival analyses of the association between residence in a Medicaid expansion state and all-cause mortality following esophageal cancer diagnosis were performed using Xxx proportional hazards models. To assess influence of various confounding factors three versions of the Cox model were used:
Study Variables. Information gathered on our study population included demographic data (age, marital status, education, number of children, occupation, monthly income), quitting attempt status (first attempt, or had previous attempts), number of attempts, duration of smoking (months), body mass index (BMI), reasons for initiation, reasons for willingness or unwillingness to quit, and reasons for relapse (in case of multiple previous attempts), as well as presence of a smoker in the family. Weight and height were collected separately and BMI was calculated from the self- reported weight and height. Participants were asked to identify their reasons for smoking initiation using a 5-point Likert scale in which they indicated the importance of any individual reason, with 1 indicating the lowest agreement and 5 indicating the highest agreement. There were six categories of reasons: (a) friends, (b) social imitation, (c) family members, (d) stress, (e) advertising, and (f) others. Two kinds of measurement for attempted quitting were collected. One measure, a dichotomous measure, was whether a woman had any history of attempts of quitting. The other measure, a continuous measure, traced the actual number of quitting attempts. Participants were asked about the reasons they were willing to quit smoking using a 5- point Likert scale in which they indicated the importance of any individual reason, with 1 indicating the lowest agreement and 5 indicating the highest agreement. There were six categories of reasons: (a) health, (b) money savings, (c) religious beliefs, (d) familial pressure,
Study Variables. The response variable was physicians agreement classified as 1=Agree and 0=Disagree. This physician agreement is affected by the explanatory variables are classified as deceased related, respondent related and geographically related variables [10-12]. The conceptual framework (see figure) was used to notice the effect of these factors on physician agreement.
