Health Programs Benefit from the Zeal of These Three CLAS Researchers

Published: Nov. 24, 2015

Assistant Professor of Health and Behavioral Sciences Patrick Krueger with student Melanie Tran and Kathryn DovelIf you have a passion for big data, and want to use it as a place to launch inquiry, you might just be a demographer. "I think about when I started graduate school, and I didn't know what I wanted to study," says Patrick Krueger, Assistant Professor of Health and Behavioral Sciences (HBSC). "But I really liked data. Whether qualitative or quantitative, I just really liked finding stuff out."

Krueger earned his PhD from University of Colorado Boulder, and to demonstrate how much he loves data he tells a story about when a professor in Boulder offered to let him come in over the summer, before his program started, to "crunch some data." Krueger jumped at the chance. As a result of his excitement and diligence, Krueger developed a great relationship with his mentor in Boulder, and he has used that connection as a model for how to help his students conduct their own data explorations. He's found two very enthusiastic data-devotees among current PhD candidates: Melanie Tran and Kathyrn Dovel.

"I came here for the interdisciplinary focus, and because of the strong theoretical framework of the program and the appreciation of mixed-methods. I've always been interested in applied public health, and I wanted to use social science as a way to explore it," states Kathryn Dovel. "After my masters, I wanted to be an in-the-field emergency relief expert. That was my dream, living abroad and being on-the-ground with public health programing. And then when I started looking at research I realized I liked it; I like the critical thinking aspect of it. I think, for me, it connected with that initial desire to help create real change."

Dovel primarily studies with Sara Yeatman, another Associate Professor in Health and Behavioral Sciences, conducting research on HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, but while taking a statistics course from Krueger she started looking for more quantitative experience. Krueger offered her one-on-one mentorship to improve her statistical knowledge, and their collaboration resulted in the paper "Democracy and self-rated health across 67 countries: A multilevel analysis" in the journal Social Science & Medicine (143:137-144) in October. Dovel enthuses about the HBSC department, "I think that our faculty is incredibly available and engaged. They invest in our interests and help us grow as researchers, more so than at some of the programs my friends are in."

Melanie Tran agrees, "I was working on data from Denver Public Health and Denver Public Schools, and I came to Patrick for help with developing the research questions and analytical approach." Tran, who has worked with Krueger on multiple publications, credits him as her mentor and says it's his approach to research and collaboration that's kept her passionate about public health research. Tran started out pre-med, but says working with data will help her to expand the scope of her influence, because, "Instead of treating one patient at a time my research can affect populations. Whether it is through health systems management or health policy, I'm able to reach, and in some ways impact, more people's health."

Tran also sees social justice possibilities in her health research. She can use race and class as variables when teasing out health outcomes as a way of enlightening populations on inequities for marginalized populations that persist. "I think that it's a privilege to have the opportunity to do research, and my intention is to be an advocate for the health of underserved populations."

Tran and Krueger (along with outside collaborators and Emeritus Professor Deborah Main) have in press with the American Journal of Epidemiology, the paper "Body Mass Transitions in Childhood and Early Adolescence: A Multistate Life Table Approach." Using multistate life table methods and transition rates estimated from prospective cohort data (2007–2013) for Denver Public School children ages 3 through 15, the paper discusses how prevalence estimates of obesity in children offer little insight into transition rates to higher or lower body mass statuses. "Usually when we think about the prevalence of obesity we think about numbers and say 'there's not much we can do about it because once you are obese you stay obese,'" admits Krueger. "But many studies haven't considered the possibility that kids might transition out of obesity, especially when they're relatively young."

Krueger claims that thinking about the transitions is where data still holds the most interest for him, but insists that his ability to support his graduate students is just as rewarding as his research. "That's what's really the most fun for me now: working with graduate students. They're very ambitious and they want to prove themselves. And with that comes a lot of interesting ideas, new learning experiences, and to me that's really rewarding and I get a lot of inspiration working with my students."