School-based health promotion across Australia.
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Australia↗
Biomedical subjects
S Maher
Publications and source records attributed to S Maher.
Building knowledge in a complex preterm birth problem domain.
Data mining methods used a racially diverse sample (n = 19,970) of pregnant women and 1,622 variables that were collected in Duke's TMR electronic patient record over a 10-year period. Different statistical and data mining methods were similar when compared using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Best results found that seven demographic variables yielded .72 and addition of hundreds of other clinical variables added only .03 to the area under the curve (AUC). Similar results across methods suggest that results were data-driven and not method-dependent, and that demographic variables may offer a small set of parsimonious variables with predictive accuracy in a racially diverse population. Work to determine relevant variables for improved predictive accuracy is ongoing.
Area Under Curve↗
Has behavior therapy drifted from its experimental roots? A survey of publication trends in mainstream behavioral journals.
In recent years it has been suggested that behavior therapy, characterized in part by single-subject designs and an idiographic approach to addressing practical problems, is drifting from its experimental roots. To examine trends in behavior therapy, and to provide an objective index of drift, two archival studies were conducted to identify publication trends in the use of single-subject designs vs. group designs, as well as citations to select basic behavioral science journals. In Study 1, articles appearing in Behavior Therapy from 1970 through 1996 were reviewed and categorized in terms of type of article, design, and citations to experimental journals. Findings from Study 1 suggest declining publication trends in single-subject designs and citations to experimental journals in Behavior Therapy, with a modest increase in the use of group designs over the period. Study 2 was designed to replicate and extend our initial findings by surveying three behavioral journals in addition to Behavior Therapy using the PsychLit database and years covering 1974 through 1996: Behaviour Research and Therapy, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, and Behavior Modification. Consistent with Study 1, results of Study 2 showed declining trends in single-subject designs for all mainstream behavioral journals. The significance of these findings in light of the argument that behavior therapy has drifted from its experimental roots is discussed, with emphasis on contingencies that may be responsible for the trends observed.
Behavior Therapy↗
Data mining methods find demographic predictors of preterm birth.
BACKGROUND: Preterm births in the United States increased from 11.0% to 11.4% between 1996 and 1997; they continue to be a complex healthcare problem in the United States. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this research was to compare traditional statistical methods with emerging new methods called data mining or knowledge discovery in databases in identifying accurate predictors of preterm births. METHOD: An ethnically diverse sample (N = 19,970) of pregnant women provided data (1,622 variables) for new methods of analysis. Preterm birth predictors were evaluated using traditional statistical and newer data mining analyses. RESULTS: Seven demographic variables (maternal age and binary coding for county of residence, education, marital status, payer source, race, and religion) yielded a .72 area under the curve using Receiving Operating Characteristic curves to test predictive accuracy. The addition of hundreds of other variables added only a .03 to the area under the curve. CONCLUSION: Similar results across data mining methods suggest that results are data-driven and not method-dependent, and that demographic variables offer a small set of parsimonious variables with reasonable accuracy in predicting preterm birth outcomes in a racially diverse population.
Data Collection↗