Vanderbilt Alzheimer's Disease Research Center: DMS Core

PROJECT SUMMARY – DATA MANAGEMENT AND STATISTICAL CORE The Vanderbilt Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (VADRC) Data Management and Statistical (DMS) Core will provide data coordination and statistical expertise to support our mission of characterizing the intersection of vascular burden with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias (ADRD) at the cellular, systems biological, and population levels. The DMS Core will interact with all VADRC Cores and the Research Education Component (REC), enhance existing informatics infrastructure, and develop new infrastructure as needed to support local research and contribute to collaborative national and international research initiatives. The DMS Core will provide consolidated data capture solutions by maintaining and expanding Center-wide relational databases for VADRC participant recruitment, screening, referral, and data capture needs. We will also coordinate high quality data management to support needs across all VADRC Cores, including data cleaning, data querying, and database quality control. The DMS Core has established a centralized and versatile informatics infrastructure to facilitate VADRC data and resource sharing. This infrastructure supports timely submission of all appropriate data to the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center and the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. It also includes our data sharing portal where investigators can request data, images, biospecimens, and participant referrals; utilization of Flight Tracker to track REC outcomes and milestones; and management of our Participant Information Tracking and Coordination Hub. In collaboration with the Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement Core, this latter tool tracks outreach events, referrals, participant recruitment requests, and participant study status, and features internal reports and dashboards to evaluate recruitment strategies and referral success. The DMS Core will develop novel applications as needed to assist REC scholars and affiliated VADRC investigators with statistical and analytical needs. Core services will include, among others, (a) study design and power considerations, (b) statistical analysis of VADRC data with an emphasis on advanced multivariate longitudinal models, and (c) interpretation of statistical results. Finally, the DMS Core will develop and apply innovative statistical and informatics methods for data harmonization and multivariate longitudinal modeling aimed at better characterizing vascular contributions to ADRD.