School of Public Health Associate Professor George Maldonado and alumna Anne Jurek (PhD, ‘04) received the 2017 General Best Paper award from the American College of Epidemiology and the Annals of Epidemiology. The honor highlights high-quality epidemiologic research that is carefully reported and addresses questions of substantial public health or methodological significance.
The award was for their paper, “Quantitative Bias Analysis in an Asthma Study of Rescue-Recovery Workers and Volunteers from the 9/11 World Trade Center Attacks,” published in the 2016 edition of the Annals of Epidemiology. The paper used a method for determining the level of uncertainty in study data to reevaluate previous research on 9/11 dust cloud exposures and associated asthma cases.
“The award recognizes the importance of both the cohort and the methodology described in the paper,” says Jurek, lead author of the study. “My research has focused on quantifying biases in study results, a methodology that is not routinely used in the field. I am amazed and pleased that an article on quantitative bias analysis has received this high recognition in epidemiology.”
Jurek and Maldonado started working together in 2001 when he served as her PhD adviser. Since that time, the pair has worked on eight papers concerning quantitative assessment of bias in epidemiologic study results.
Jurek is currently an epidemiologist with The Dow Chemical Company and an adjunct professor with the school. She researches epidemiologic methodology, specifically exposure misclassification and interpreting health study results.
Maldonado has been a faculty member of School of Public Health since 1990 and researches and teaches epidemiologic methodology with a focus on causal reasoning, concepts of validity, and uncertainty (bias) analysis.