Andriy V. Koval

University of Central Florida | UCF · Department of Health Management and Informatics

Background: The U.S. is undergoing an opioid overdose crisis. Harm reduction (HR) policies are associated with decreased overdose deaths and incidence of communicable diseases, yet legality of HR policies differs across U.S. jurisdictions. College student perceptions of HR policies are underexplored, even though their voting behavior has increased...

This paper compares health policy responses to COVID-19 in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and United States of America (US) from January to November 2020, with the aim of facilitating cross-country learning. Evidence is taken from the COVID-19 Health System Response Monitor, a joint initiative of the European Observatory on Health Systems and...

Epidemic Models of the Onset of Social Activities (EMOSA) describe behaviors that spread through social networks. Two social influence methods are represented, social contagion (one‐to‐one spread) and general diffusion (spread through cultural channels). Past models explain problem behaviors—smoking, drinking, sexuality, and delinquency. We provide...

As of November 2020, the United States leads the world in confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and deaths. Over the past 10 months, the United States has experienced three peaks in new cases, with the most recent spike in November setting new records. Inaction and the lack of a scientifically informed, unified response have contribut...

Background and objectives: Machine learning approaches using random forest have been effectively used to provide decision support in health and medical informatics. This is especially true when predicting variables associated with Medicare reimbursements. However, more work is needed to analyze and predict data associated with reimbursements throug...

Introduction When reporting disease rates to the public, a health system must take precaution to protect released data from re-identification risks. While specific guidelines and methods vary across data systems and governances 1 , redaction of cells with small values is a key component in any approach for preparing data for public release. These p...

Considering the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, scholars were encouraged to cease collocated meetings. Many researchers have turned to remote collaboration to continue group-based projects. This paper focuses on the structure, processes, and outcomes that a group of physically distanced, embedded researchers used to collaborate across...

CONTEXT: The Health System Impact (HSI) Fellowship, an innovative training program developed by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research's Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, provides PhD-trained health researchers with an embedded, experiential learning opportunity within a health system organization. METHODS/DESIGN: An electron...

Background: Visual analytics (VA) promotes the understanding of data using visual, interactive techniques and using analytic and visual engines. The analytic engine includes machine learning and other automated techniques, whereas common visual outputs include flow maps and spatiotemporal hotspots for studying service gaps and disease distribution....

Context: The Health System Impact (HSI) Fellowship, an innovative training program developed by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research's Institute of Health Services and Policy Research, provides PhD-trained health researchers with an embedded, experiential learning opportunity within a health system organization. Methods/design: An electron...

Objective: Handgrip strength, an indicator of overall muscle strength, has been found to be associated with slower rate of cognitive decline and decreased risk for cognitive impairment and dementia. However, evaluating the replicability of associations between aging-related changes in physical and cognitive functioning is challenging due to differ...

Background Substantial research is dedicated to understanding the aging-related dynamics among individual differences in level, change, and variation across physical and cognitive abilities. Evaluating replicability and synthesizing these findings has been limited by differences in measurements and samples, and by study design and statistical analy...

This paper presents a framework for addressing data access challenges associated with secondary use of high-dimensional transactional datasets that have been extracted from electronic health/medical records (EHRs). These datasets are subject to the data de-identification "curse of dimensionality" [1] which manifests as substantial challenges to pre...

We examined the relationship between active cognitive lifestyle (i.e. social network size and participation in cognitive activities) and transitions between different cognitive states (i.e., normal MMSE, mild MMSE impairment, severe MMSE impairment) and evaluated the consistency of results across four longitudinal studies of aging (i.e. OCTO-Twin,...

Substantial research has focused on aging-related dynamics among individual differences in level, change, and variation across physical and cognitive functioning. Evaluating replicability and synthesizing these findings has been limited by differences in measurements and samples, and by study design and statistical analyses confounding between-pers...

We investigated the heterogeneity in end of life cognitive decline in two European longitudinal studies of the oldest old: the OCTO-Twin and the Newcastle 85+ Study. Using a coordinated analytical approach, we identified unobserved groups of individuals with similar trajectories of cognitive decline at the end of life by fitting Tobit Growth Mixtur...

We investigated the association between rates of change in grip strength and indicators of different domains of cognitive function (mental status, processing speed, attention and working memory, perceptual reasoning, verbal ability, and learning and memory) within a multiple-study comparative framework. Bivariate growth models stratified by gender...

We investigated the heterogeneity in end of life cognitive decline in two European longitudinal studies of the oldest old: the OCTO-Twin and the Newcastle 85+ Study. Using a coordinated analytical approach, we identified unobserved groups of individuals with similar trajectories of cognitive decline at the end of life by fitting Tobit Growth Mixtur...

Introduction All bits of clinical information acquire meaning against a backdrop of longitudinal engagement with a potentially large constellation of services. Full cross-continuum transactional data will be refractory to analysis unless the full continuum of service locations can be rendered in a form that is transparent with regard to target popu...

Introduction: This study examines the role of educational attainment, an indicator of cognitive reserve, on transitions in later life between cognitive states (normal Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), mild MMSE impairment, and severe MMSE impairment) and death. Methods: Analysis of six international longitudinal studies was performed using a...

There is considerable evidence to support a link between an active cognitive lifestyle and a decreased risk of cognitive decline and dementia. Further, it has been shown that an active lifestyle is associated with a decreased risk of cognitive decline, an increased risk of cognitive recovery and a reduced risk of mortality, though results are incon...

This study examines the role of educational attainment on transitions in later life between cognitive states (i.e., normal cognitive functioning, mild cognitive impairment, dementia) and mortality and life-expectancies. Analysis of six international longitudinal studies was performed using a coordinated approach. Multistate survival models were use...

The importance of preventing and controlling hypertension (HTN) and diabetes mellitus (DM) to mitigate risks to physical health has long been understood by health care professionals. More recently, a growing body of evidence implicates HTN and DM in age-related cognitive decline and risk for dementia, though consensus has yet to be reached on wheth...