Publications by authors named "T Bernard Bigdeli"

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide and a major global health concern. In the United States (US), individuals of Black or African American racial identity experience disproportionately higher rates of TBI and suffer from worse post-injury outcomes. Contemporary research agendas have largely overlooked or excluded Black populations, resulting in the continued marginalization of Black patient populations in TBI studies, thereby limiting the generalizability of ongoing research to patients in the US and around the world.

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Importance: Persons with substance use disorders (SUD) often suffer from additional comorbidities, including psychiatric conditions and physical health problems. Researchers have explored this overlap in electronic health records (EHR) using phenome wide association studies (PheWAS) to characterize how different indicators are related to all conditions in an individual's EHR. However, analyses have been largely cross-sectional in nature.

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Genotype imputation is crucial for GWAS, but reference panels and existing benchmarking studies prioritize European individuals. Consequently, it is unclear which publicly available reference panel should be used for Pakistani individuals, and whether ancestry composition or sample size of the panel matters more for imputation accuracy. Our study compared different reference panels to impute genotype data in 1814 Pakistani individuals, finding the best performance balancing accuracy and coverage with meta-imputation with TOPMed and the expanded 1000 Genomes (ex1KG) reference.

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  • * By analyzing data from the Million Veteran Program and other cohorts, the study identifies 63 genetic loci linked to AMD, including 30 that were previously unknown, highlighting significant differences in risk among various ancestries.
  • * The findings reveal that certain genetic risk factors, like those found in the CFH locus, have varying effects based on ancestry, suggesting that targeted therapies could be developed by considering these genetic differences.
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  • The study investigates the mental health crisis in Haiti due to drug trafficking, violence, and political instability, comparing experiences between Haitian communities in Haiti and the U.S.
  • Focus groups with 28 participants revealed key stressors like violence, unemployment, and family separation, leading to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.
  • Effective coping strategies identified included peer support, leisure activities, and spirituality, while barriers to mental health care were marked by stigma and lack of resources.
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