Tools for Housestaff Research

General

Osler Survival Guide to Research during Residency, by Susan Cheng
Hopkins Institutional Review Boards
Johns Hopkins Hospital General Clinical Research Center
Johns Hopkins Bayview General Clinical Research Center (Intranet only)
Clinical Research During Residency: A Practical Guide
Picking a Research Problem -- The Critical Decision

Schedules of Major Scientific Meetings

American Association of Cancer Research
American College of Physicians 
American College of Physicians Maryland Chapter (Maryland ACP)
American College of Rheumatology
American Diabetes Association
American Heart Association
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
American Society of Microbiology Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC)
American Society of Nephrology
American Thoracic Society
Digestive Disease Week
Society of General Internal Medicine

Examples of Data Collection Forms

Data collection forms from large epidemiologic studies
Women's Health Initiative
Framingham Study
CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)
The Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) (permission requested) 
Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)
The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study
Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS)

Standard questionnaires
RAND MOS 36-Item Short Form Survey Instrument (SF-36)
2004 NHIS Questionnaire: Adult Health Behaviors (related to smoking, physical activity, and alcohol consumption)
The CAGE Questionnaire (for diagnosis of alcoholism)
Baecke Questionnaire (for physical activity)
CES-D Depression Scale
Diet History Questionnaire (DHQ)

Independent Learning Courses
JHSPH OpenCourseWare (OCW)
University of Pittsburgh Supercourse: Epidemiology, the Internet, and Global Health

Other Useful Sites

Data Management and Statistical Analysis

Microsoft EXCEL(spreadsheet) and MicrosoftACCESS(data management program) are user-friendly programs for PC users. To order Microsoft Office products, and review the JHU MEEC plans, you will need a JHED account to access the contents. Otherwise, e-mail[email protected].

CDC Epi Info(Free download) is a public domain software for easy form and database construction, data entry, and analysis with epidemiologic statistics, maps, and graphs. CDC offers limited support for Epi Info software.

EpiData software (download) was developed based on the principals of Epi Info V6. EpiData includes functions for data entry, documentation, and basic statistical analysis. This software is available for free as a result of international donations and voluntary work.

For statistical analysis, STATASAS, and SPSS are common choices for clinical researchers. In addition to analysis ability, those programs also provide spreadsheet-like systems for data entry.

  • STATA: $179 for Intercooled Stata 11 (Single-user, perpetual license and Getting Started manual) under the GradPlan for JHU faculty, staff, and students. Order the product from the STATA website directly. 
  • SAS: $30 for DVD purchase, $55 for license, and $55 for annual renewal. This product is available to JHU faculty, staff, and students for a yearly fee. The software will cease working if the product is not renewed at timed intervals.
  • SPSS: $30 for CD purchase, about $145 for license, and about $97 for annual renewal. This product is available to JHU faculty, staff, and students for a yearly fee. The software will cease working if the product is not renewed at timed intervals.

Additional Statistical Resources

Statistics Notes in BMJ: 
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~mb55/pubs/pbstnote.htm

BMJ Research Methods & Reporting:
http://www.bmj.com/search?submit=yes&tocsectionid=Research%20Methods*

Choose a statistical analysis: 
http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/mult_pkg/whatstat/default.htm

Resources to help you learn and use Stata: 
http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/default.htm

Resources to help you learn and use R: 
http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/r/

Resources to help you learn and use SAS: 
http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/sas/

Further resources

Disease Likelihood Calculator
Collections of Statistical Calculations

Power/Sample size calculators

MGH Biostatistics
NCSS and PASS (Free 7-day trial version)
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center