Data science to improve patient outcomes
The Clinical Epidemiology Team at the Medical University of Innsbruck applies cutting-edge methods in data science to clinical research, spanning from study design and data management to analytical tools. Using large-scale data, we aim to scrutinise pathophysiological pathways for cardiovascular diseases, identify potential targets for therapeutic intervention, and improve current strategies for primary and secondary prevention. Our research is interdisciplinary, bringing together data scientists and clinicians from different medical fields.
Prevalence of RT-PCR-detected SARS-CoV-2 infection at schools: First results from the Austrian School-SARS-CoV-2 Study
There is much debate about the role of schools and children in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In a consortium of four Austrian universities (Medical University of Innsbruck, Medical University of Graz, Medical Faculty of the JKU Linz, University of Vienna), we set out to reliably quantify the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infections…
Design and rationale of the Proof-ATHERO consortium
This paper - published in Gerontology - outlines the broad aims of the Proof-ATHERO consortium and describes the principal methodology of data management and analysis of study data. The Proof-ATHERO consortium collates individual-participant data of studies with information on atherosclerosis measures, risk factors for cardiovascular disease, and incident cardiovascular events.…
Carotid intima-media thickness progression as surrogate marker for cardiovascular risk
In this paper - published in Circulation - we quantified the association between the intervention effects on carotid intima media thickness (cIMT) progression and the intervention effect on cardiovascular risk. Therefore, we systematically reviewed the literature and collected aggregated literature based data and individual participant data from 119 randomised controlled…
Which body mass index is associated with the greatest survival?
Overweight and obesity are increasing worldwide. To help assess their relevance to mortality in different populations we meta-analysed prospective studies of body-mass index, limiting confounding and reverse causality by restricting analyses to never-smokers and excluding pre-existing disease and the first 5 years of follow-up. Of 10 625 411 participants in Asia, Australia…
Reductions in life expectancy with cardiometabolic disease
Cardiometabolic diseases often occur in one and the same individual. In this paper published in JAMA, we aimed to estimate by how much life expectancy is reduced in individuals suffering from cardiometabolic multimorbidity. In our analysis, we calculated mortality rates and hazard ratios (HRs) adjusted for age and sex using…
Improving cardiovascular disease prediction with lipoprotein(a)
Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] is a causal risk factor for cardiovascular disease. In this paper published in JACC we aimed to investigate whether Lp(a) modifies clinical risk assessment in the general community. We measured Lp(a) in 826 men and women (age range, 45 to 84 years) and recorded incidence of cardiovascular diseases…