Ian D. Buller

DLH Corporation · Public Health & Scientific Research

Background Cancer epidemiology studies require sufficient power to assess spatial relationships between exposures and cancer incidence accurately. However, methods for power calculations of spatial statistics are complicated and underdeveloped, and therefore underutilized by investigators. The spatial relative risk function, a cluster detection tec...

Background: In 1971, the National Cancer Act created a process to recognize the leadership, facilities, and research efforts at cancer centers throughout the United States. Toward this goal, each National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Center defines and describes a catchment area to which they tailor specific scientific and community en...

Background: Despite the success of smoking cessation campaigns, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Variations in smoking behavior and lung cancer mortality are evident by sex and region. Methods: Applying geospatial methods to lung cancer mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System and county...

Nitrate and nitrite are precursors in the endogenous formation of N-nitroso compounds (NOC) which are potent animal carcinogens for the organs of the digestive system. We evaluated dietary intakes of nitrate and nitrite, as well as nitrate ingestion from drinking water (public drinking water supplies (PWS)), in relation to the incidence (1986–2014)...

Background The epidemiological evidence regarding the carcinogenicity of nitrate and sodium in drinking water is limited, partly because measuring the exposure at the individual level is complex. Most studies have used nitrate in water supplies as a proxy for individual exposure, but dietary intakes and other factors may contribute to the exposure....

Background Despite recent advances in lung cancer therapeutics and improving overall survival, disparities persist among socially disadvantaged populations. This study aims to determine the effects of neighborhood deprivation indices (NDI) on lung cancer mortality. This is a multicenter retrospective cohort study assessing the relationship between...

Mental health effects are frequently reported following natural disasters. However, little is known about effects of living in a hazard-prone region on mental health. We analyzed data from 9312 Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study participants who completed standardized mental health questionnaires including the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (depression...

Background Climate factors such as solar radiation could contribute to mood disorders, but evidence of associations between exposure to solar radiation and mood disorders is mixed and varies by region. Objective To evaluate the association of solar radiation with depression and distress among residents living in U.S. Gulf states. Methods We enrol...

6551 Background: Despite recent advances in lung cancer therapeutics leading to considerable improvement in survival, disparities continue to persist among socially disadvantaged populations. Although the reasons underlying this phenomenon are uncertain, we posit that neighborhood-level factors could play a role. Furthermore, neighborhood disadvant...

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is strongly associated with mosaic chromosomal alterations (mCAs), a type of clonal hematopoiesis characterized by large structural chromosomal changes (e.g., gains, losses and copy neutral loss of heterozygosity). We aim to identify specific chromosomal regions that, when impacted by mCAs, are most predictive of...

Disease surveillance systems are crucial to monitor and predict outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, as well as to understand the dynamics and trends of diseases over space and time. For zoonotic diseases, i.e., diseases that spread from animals to humans, surveillance systems often rely on complex data collection mechanisms which present particular...

Background: Ethylene oxide (EtO) is a carcinogenic gas used in chemical production and to sterilize medical equipment that has been linked to risk of breast and lymphohematopoietic cancers in a small number of occupational studies. We investigated the relationship between environmental EtO exposure and risk of these cancers. Methods: Using the U...

Endemic Burkitt lymphoma (eBL) is a pediatric cancer coendemic with malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting an etiological link between them. However, previous cross-sectional studies of limited geographic areas have not found a convincing association. We used spatially detailed data from the Epidemiology of Burkitt Lymphoma in East African Child...

Despite improvements in overall cancer survival, there are racial and ethnic disparities in mortality rates among cancer survivors. Further investigation of both socioeconomic factors and genetic ancestry is needed to better understand contributors to disparities in cancer mortality. The aim of this study was to compare self-identified race-ethnici...

There are unique challenges to identifying causes and developing strategies for prevention of rare cancers, driven by the difficulty in estimating incidence, prevalence, and survival due to their small numbers. Using a Poisson modeling approach, Salmerón et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2021) built upon their previous work to estimate incidence rates of rar...

Abstract: Geocoding is a powerful tool for environmental exposure assessments that rely on spatial databases. Geocoding processes, locators, and reference datasets have improved over time; however, improvements have not been well-characterized. Enrollment addresses for the Agricultural Health Study, a cohort of pesticide applicators and their spous...

Yersinia pestis is a gram-negative bacterium, primarily transmitted via flea bite, causing plague in numerous mammal species. While human cases are rare in the United States (US), plague can exhibit severe pathology, including death. Surveillance for plague antibodies in wildlife can shed light on disease occurrence and epizootics; however, samplin...

Background/Question/Methods Yersinia pestis is a gram­negative bacterium, primarily transmitted via flea bite, that causes plague in numerous mammal species. While rare, humans in the United States (US) can suffer major pathology and plague is of conservation concern for endangered mammal species. Surveillance in wildlife can shed light on pathogen...

Yersinia pestis is a gram-negative bacterium, primarily transmitted via flea bite, causing plague in numerous mammal species. Surveillance for plague antibodies in wildlife can shed light on disease occurrence and epizootics; however, sampling strategy influences the findings from wildlife surveillance. To determine the spatial distribution of Y. p...

In 2015, the Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and 300 city stakeholders compiled a list of ten impact areas in a Power to Change initiative called the City of Atlanta’s (COA) Climate Action Plan (CAP). The CAP is designed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at a local level in order to help mitigate the global effects of climate change...

Preliminary findings of the first chapter analysis of my doctoral dissertation. In collaboration with the California Department of Public Health, we used observed coyote locations and their disease status to predict the spatial distribution of plague in California using a common ecological niche modeling approach.

n February 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global public health emergency in response to the potential pandemic of the Zika virus. To prevent transmission, WHO advises persons who travel to affected regions to avoid mosquito bites by wearing protective clothing, hats, and insect repellent. This advice is very similar to WHO’s r...

Background/Question/Methods Site-occupancy models (SOMs) use repeated-survey data to disentangle probabilities of species detection and occurrence so that ‘true’ site occupancy, as well as covariate effects on occurrence and detection probabilities, can be estimated. One common problem of standard SOMs is that maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) fa...

Background/Question/Methods Understanding the factors that constrain species distributions is a long-standing goal of ecology, although many such studies involve only free-living species. Studies of disease occurrence and spread often require broader knowledge of distributional overlap for free-living and parasitic species, emphasizing the import...

Background / Purpose: A flatworm trematode macroparasite Alaria spp. is a poorly understood parasite found in an aquatic system. It is well suited to study the distribution, effects, and implications of infectious diseases. This parasite has a complex, multi-host lifecycle involving amphibians Helisoma trivolvis snails, Pseudacris regilla and Ana...

Background/Question/Methods A flatworm trematode macroparasite genus, Alaria spp., is a poorly understood parasite found in an aquatic system well suited to study the distribution, effects, and implications of infectious diseases. This parasite has a complex, multi-host lifecycle involving Helisoma trivolvis snails, Pseudacris regilla and Anaxyru...

The challenges associated with isolating and identifying larval parasites often lead to their omission from large-scale helminth surveys focused on adult parasites. However, with growing interest in amphibian pathology and declines associated with infections, there is a pressing need to identify and quantify these stages. Between June and August 20...

Within most free-living species exists a cryptic community of interacting parasites. By combining multiscale field data with manipulative experiments, we evaluated patterns of parasite coinfection in amphibian hosts and their underlying mechanisms. Surveys of 86 wetlands and 1273 hosts revealed positive correlations between two pathogenic trematode...

Background/Question/Methods Within most free-living species exists a cryptic yet dynamic community of interacting parasites. Although epidemiological research generally focuses on single-host, single-pathogen systems, growing evidence indicates that interactions among parasite species influences host pathology, parasite transmission, and host-paras...

From June to August 2009, four hundred and thirteen Western toad, Anaxyrus boreas, tadpoles and recent metamorphs were collected from 31 locations in California and Oregon, United States. A total of 8 different taxa were recovered including 7 larval digenean trematodes and 1 nematode. The larval digeneans include Ribeiroia ondatrae, Echinostoma spp...