Poster Session

The 2015 NCHS Poster Session offered a venue for researchers from academia, industry, and government agencies to present original research on health, health data, and statistics, and provided a forum for informal discussion with interested colleagues.

An unprecedented number of poster abstract submissions were received this year, a 40% increase over 2012. Abstracts were submitted from all over the world, including Canada, France, India, Nigeria, and Uruguay. Thirty percent were submitted by student researchers. Among all submissions, more than one-half were from an educational institution or medical center, 33% were from a government agency, and the remaining were from another type of organization. Abstracts covered a diverse range of topics, including nutrition, obesity, and physical activity (23% of submissions); methodologic research and statistical methods (12%); health disparities (10%); maternal and child health (8%); vital statistics (8%); and other areas. All abstracts, from students and nonstudents, went through a rigorous blinded review and scoring by reviewers from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). A total of 121 out of 180 abstracts were accepted for presentation during the Poster Session and an additional 4 were offered the Student Research Showcase opportunity. This represented an overall 69% acceptance rate.

Poster Presentation Sessions

• Posters – At a Glance Listing
• Posters – Detailed Abstracts

Student Awards

Similar to the 2012 Conference, the 2015 NCHS Poster Session offered two student award opportunities:

1. The Student Research Showcase recognized the best poster abstracts first authored by a student. The following four students with exceptional abstracts based on judges’ scores presented their research orally in lieu of a poster presentation. The oral presentations were given during the Student Research Showcase—Highlighting Exceptional Student Research in Health Statistics (DD4), held on Wednesday, August 26th, 2015 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

   Sharifa Z. Barracks, M.S., M.P.H. 
   “Estimating the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among National Guard Service members using a Bayesian post-stratification model” 
   Sharifa Z. Barracks is a doctoral student in Biostatistics at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Ms. Barracks received a B.A. in Economics with a minor in Mathematics from Rutgers University, an M.P.H. in Health Policy & Management and an M.S. in Biostatistics from Columbia University. Ms. Barracks has an interest in survey research and is currently working on methods to improve estimation in surveys with small subpopulations. She also works as a data analyst on a survey research study that aims to describe the health and social characteristics of a Manhattan neighborhood.

   Mary Kwakyepeprah, M.A. 
   “Association between previous mode of delivery and maternal and perinatal complications among adolescent women”
   Mary Kwakyepeprah is a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine at the University of Ottawa. She received her master’s degree in Health Care Services from Florida A&M University and a B.Sc. in Business Administration from the University of Ghana. She has had several years of experience as a teaching assistant at Florida A&M University and the University of Ottawa. She is also a recipient of the Faculty of Medicine Fisher Academic Excellence award and the Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarships in Science and Technology award. Her research involves analyzing maternal and child health complications and evaluating the economic implications associated with various methods of delivery.

   Yu-Hsiu Lin, M.B.A., R.N.
   “The Association between Primary Care Physician Density and Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions Hospitalizations for Medicare Beneficiaries” 
   Yu-Hsiu Lin is a doctoral student in the Department of Health Services Policy and Management in the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina and is a research associate at the South Carolina Rural Health Research Center. She received a B.S. in Medical and Nursing Management at the National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences and an M.B.A. in Health Care Management at the Central Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. Her research is primarily focused on health services research, health disparities, aging and public health, and long-term care. Ms. Lin is currently exploring the older population’s health care utilization and health outcomes by statistical and spatial analyses.

   Crystal E. Romeo Upperman, M.P.A.
   “Extreme Heat and Hay Fever Prevalence in the Continental United States, 1997-2013” 
   Crystal E. Romeo Upperman is a doctoral candidate in the Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences Program at the University of Maryland at College Park. She received a B.S. in Environmental Science from Spelman College and her master’s in Public Administration from Kennesaw State University. Her research interests include environmental science, environmental health, and climate change impacts assessment on chronic diseases. Her prior experiences include extensive laboratory research in environmental remediation and catalyst products with years of regulatory compliance in ambient air monitoring, radiation protection, and environmental health. She was the recipient of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science to Achieve Results and National Science Foundation Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation fellowships.

2. The Student Poster Prize recognized the best poster presentations by students.

   Judges from NCHS visited all student posters. Each student provided a 5-minute overview of his or her poster and answered questions from the judges. Based on judges’ scores, six student posters were selected as finalists for the Outstanding Student Poster Awards. During the Plenary Session on Wednesday, August 26th, the top three Outstanding Student Posters were announced and the presenters were recognized with an award and their photograph was taken with the Director of NCHS.

   • First Place: Alison Stewart Ng – Teen Childbearing in Rural America
   • Second Place: Betelihem B. Tobo – The Interaction Effects of Binge Drinking, BMI, and Smoking as Combined Risk Factors for Self-Reported Lifetime Depression Diagnosis
   • Third Place: Adrian Matias Bacong – Examining the Relationship Between Ethnicity and Diabetes Management Among Asians and Pacific Islanders
   • Walid A. Al-Soneidar – Unmet Need for Dental Care among US Children with and without Disabilities in 2013
   • Sahel Hazrati – Being overweight at 12 months of age in Hispanic versus Non-Hispanic children: Comparing clinical and social factors
   • Cassandra A. Phillips – Fast Food: a Source of Exposure to Phthalates and Bisphenol A in a Nationally Representative Sample

From left to right: Dr. Ryne Paulose and NCHS Director Charles Rothwell with student award recipients Sharifa Z. Barracks, Sahel Hazrati, Betelihem B. Tobo, Alison Stewart Ng, Adrian Matias Bacong, Yu-Hsiu Lin, and Mary Kwakyepeprah

To view previous events and presentations, see 2012 NCHS Poster Sessions.