Samprit Chatterjee

The Impact of Obesity on Health Service Utilization and Costs in Childhood

Most studies of the economic costs of childhood obesity have focused upon hospitalization for comorbidities of obesity, whereas increased expenditures may also be the result of additional outpatient/emergency room visits or prescription drug expenditures. To quantify the magnitude of increased health‐care utilization and expenditures among overweight and obese children, we performed descriptive, bivariate, and multivariable analyses on data from 6‐ to 19‐year olds in the 2002–2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), a national probability survey of the noninstitutionalized civilian population in the United States. Compared with normal/underweight children, we found that children who were obese during both years of the MEPS had

Strain-dependent differences in the efficiency of transgenic mouse production

194 higher outpatient visit expenditures,

Multivariate Stratified Surveys

114 higher prescription drug expenditures, and

Black/White Differences in Very Low Birth Weight Neonatal Mortality Rates Among New York City Hospitals

12 higher emergency room expenditures. Children who were overweight during both years, or overweight in one year and obese in the other had

Robust regression:a weighted least squares approach

79 higher outpatient visit expenditures,

A Nonparametric Approach to Credit Screening

64 higher prescription drug expenditures, and

Relation of Coarctation of the Aorta to the Occurrence of Ascending Aortic Dilation in Children and Young Adults With Bicuspid Aortic Valves

25 higher emergency room expenditures than normal/underweight children. Significantly, increased utilization was noted for outpatient visits, prescription drug use, and emergency room visits. Increased costs and utilization were concentrated among adolescents, though 6–11‐year‐old children who were obese in both years did have more outpatient visits and expenditures than other children. Extrapolated to the nation, elevated BMI in childhood was associated with

A note on optimum allocation

14.1 billion in additional prescription drug, emergency room, and outpatient visit costs annually. Although further research is needed to identify effective interventions, the immediate economic consequences of childhood obesity are much greater than previously realized, and further reinforce efforts to prevent this major comorbidity are needed.

Estimation of misclassification probabilities by bootstrap methods

Transgenic mouse production via pronuclear microinjection is a complex process consisting of a number of sequential steps. Many different factors contribute to the effectiveness of each step and thus influence the overall efficiency of transgenic mouse production. The response of egg donor females to superovulation, the fertilization rate, egg survival after injection, ability of manipulated embryos to implant and develop to term, and concentration and purity of the injected DNA all contribute to transgenic production efficiency. We evaluated and compared the efficiency of transgenic mouse production using four different egg donor mouse strains: B6D2/F1 hybrids, Swiss Webster (SW) outbred, and inbred FVB/N and C57BL/6. The data included experiments involving ∼350 DNA transgene constructs performed by a high capacity core transgenic mouse facility. Significant influences of particular genetic backgrounds on the efficiency of different steps of the production process were found. Except for egg production, FVB/N mice consistently produced the highest efficiency of transgenic mouse production at each step of the process. B6D2/F2 hybrid eggs are also quite efficient, but lyze more frequently than FVB/N eggs after DNA microinjection. SW eggs on the other hand block at the 1-cell stage more often than eggs from the other strains. Finally, using C57BL/6 eggs the main limiting factor is that the fetuses derived from injected eggs do not develop to term as often as the other strains. Based on our studies, the procedure for transgenic mouse production can be modified for each egg donor strain in order to overcome any deficiencies, and thus to increase the overall efficiency of transgenic mouse production.

Using the intraoperative hand held probe without lymphoscintigraphy or using only dye correlates with higher sensory morbidity following sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer: A review of the literature

In this paper we consider the allocation problem for multivariate stratified surveys. If the stratum variances for the different variates are not distributed in the same way Neyman allocation optimizing the measurement of one variate is of limited value. In our formulation we determine the allocation such that sample estimates meet stated levels of precision or tolerance at minimum cost. Solution of the allocation problem is shown to be a programming problem and an example is given to illustrate it. By obtaining the solution to one plan a sampler essentially obtains the solution to a whole series of plans. The problem of tolerance setting is then discussed. An emprical solution, based on practical rather than some over-riding theoretical consideration, to the problem is given. A set of coefficients which elucidate the cost implications of each of the tolerances are derived.