Professor Holford's current research extends his work with age-period-cohort models for population disease trends to analyses that quantify the impact of exposure to known risk factors on those trends. His work measuring the impact of cigarette smoking on lung cancer mortality is an example of this approach and it is part of the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET). These models are useful in planning disease control strategies. Another focus of his research is the development of methods for studying the impact of environmental exposures on disease risk using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). These applications include the effect of exposure to traffic on asthma symptoms, and the prediction of areas that have habitats that are compatible with vectors for specific microbial diseases.
Specialized Terms: Development and application of statistical methods in health research; Methodology for the analysis of spatial and temporal trends in disease
Asthma; Lung Neoplasms; Public Health; Global Health; Statistics; Geographic Information Systems
Environmental Health; Epidemiology Methods; Maternal & Child Health