Publications by authors named "J Drake Wakefield"

To establish an overarching definition of what constitutes a sleep disorder, it is essential to know which health conditions should be included in the classifications of sleep disorders and to better distinguish the normal from the pathological in sleep medicine. This would bring together several professional organizations in their understanding of this hitherto heterogeneous concept. However, no consensus regarding a general definition of a sleep disorder currently exists.

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In countries where population census data are limited, generating accurate subnational estimates of health and demographic indicators is challenging. Existing model-based geostatistical methods leverage covariate information and spatial smoothing to reduce the variability of estimates but often ignore the survey design, while traditional small area estimation approaches may not incorporate both unit-level covariate information and spatial smoothing in a design consistent way. We propose a smoothed model-assisted estimator that accounts for survey design and leverages both unit-level covariates and spatial smoothing.

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Accurate estimates of subnational health and demographic indicators are critical for informing policy. Many countries collect relevant data using complex household surveys, but when data are limited, direct weighted estimates of small area proportions may be unreliable. Area level models treating these direct estimates as response data can improve precision but often require known sampling variances of the direct estimators for all areas.

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Article Synopsis
  • Small area population counts are crucial for epidemiological studies in the U.S., but their quality and accuracy often remain unverified due to variations in data collection methods and processing by the Census Bureau's different data sources.
  • There are significant discrepancies among the U.S. Census Bureau's decennial census, intercensal population projections, and American Community Survey estimates, affecting small area disease and mortality rates used in public health research.
  • The proposed Bayesian population (BPop) model integrates these different data sources to produce more accurate, race-stratified population estimates for Georgia counties between 2006 and 2023 while accounting for source-specific errors and enabling predictions for years without reported data.
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Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is a common skin cancer caused by mutagenesis resulting from excess UVR or other types of oxidative stress. These stressors also upregulate the production of a cutaneous innate immune element, cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide (CAMP), through endoplasmic reticulum stress-initiated, sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) signaling pathway. Although CAMP has beneficial antimicrobial activities, it also can be proinflammatory and procarcinogenic.

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