Jennifer F. Bobb, PhD
“I am excited about the potential for scientific discovery in the era of big data. With critical scientific thinking and advanced statistical methods, we can leverage rich data sources to improve public health.”
Jennifer F. Bobb, PhD
Associate Biostatistics Investigator, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Jennifer.F.Bobb@kp.org
206-287-2190
Google Scholar
GitHub
Biography
Jennifer Bobb, PhD, aims to apply rigorous statistical methods to address important problems in public health. She is interested in statistical issues that occur when data that were not originally collected for research purposes, such as administrative claims data or electronic health records, are used for addressing scientific questions relevant to clinical practice and health policy.
At Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI), Dr. Bobb collaborates with scientists across a broad range of research areas, including mental and behavioral health and social determinants of health. As an investigator with the Health Care Systems Addictions Research Network, she provides statistical leadership on pragmatic clinical trials at Kaiser Permanente Washington and other health systems. She is the lead statistician on a stepped wedge trial evaluating how mental health and wellness integration at Kaiser Permanente Washington affects clinical care and health outcomes, as well as a multi-site pragmatic trial to evaluate a program for increasing medication treatment for opioid use disorders within primary care settings. She has developed statistical guidance to address methodological challenges introduced by pragmatic trials that leverage electronic health records data to define study eligibility and outcomes.
With expertise in environmental biostatistics, Dr. Bobb has led large-scale epidemiological investigations on the health effects of exposure to extreme heat and air pollution. She developed flexible modeling approaches for estimating the health effects of multi-pollutant mixtures that broadly apply to settings where large numbers of exposures may interact or have complex relationships with health, along with publicly available software implementing these methods. In recent work, she is collaborating on the Moving to Health study, which explores whether changes in the built environment, such as access to healthy foods and walkability, affect long-term weight and diabetes management.
Dr. Bobb is an affiliate assistant professor in biostatistics at the University of Washington and an associate editor of the journal Biostatistics. She serves on the Committee for Funded Research of the American Statistical Association and is a member of the International Biometric Society. Before joining KPWHRI, Dr. Bobb completed her PhD in biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2012, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Research interests and experience
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Biostatistics
Bayesian methods; analysis of observational data; pragmatic trial design and analysis; analysis of spatial-temporal data
Health Services & Economics
Biostatistics; implementation science
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Mental Health
Biostatistics; behavioral health; alcohol and substance use disorders
Social Determinants of Health
Biostatistics; built environment
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Environmental Health
Health effects of air pollution, extreme weather events; statistical methods for complex environmental mixtures
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Addictions
Prevention and treatment
Recent publications
Tsui JI, Akosile MA, Lapham GT, Boudreau DM, Johnson EA, Bobb JF, Binswanger IA, Yarborough BJH, Glass JE, Rossom RC, Murphy MT, Cunningham CO, Arnsten JH, Thakral M, Saxon AJ, Merrill JO, Samet JH, Bart GB, Campbell CI, Loree AM, Silva A, Stotts AL, Ahmedani B, Braciszewski JM, Hechter RC, Northrup TF, Horigian VE, Bradley KA. Prevalence and medication treatment of opioid use disorder among primary care patients with hepatitis C and HIV. J Gen Intern Med. 2021 Feb 10. doi: 10.1007/s11606-020-06389-7. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Zhao Y, Naumova EN, Bobb JF, Henn BC, Singh GM. Joint association of multiple dietary components on cardiovascular disease risk: a machine learning approach. Am J Epidemiol. 2021 Feb 1;kwab004. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwab004. Online ahead of print. PubMed
Campbell CI, Saxon AJ, Boudreau DM, Wartko PD, Bobb JF, Lee AK, Matthews AG, McCormack J, Liu DS, Addis M, Altschuler A, Samet JH, LaBelle CT, Arnsten J, Caldeiro RM, Borst DT, Stotts AL, Braciszewski JM, Szapocznik J, Bart G, Schwartz RP, McNeely J, Liebschutz JM, Tsui JI, Merrill JO, Glass JE, Lapham GT, Murphy SM, Weinstein ZM, Yarborough BJH, Bradley KA. PRimary Care Opioid Use Disorders treatment (PROUD) trial protocol: a pragmatic, cluster-randomized implementation trial in primary care for opioid use disorder treatment. Addict Sci Clin Pract. 2021;16(1):9. doi: 10.1186/s13722-021-00218-w. PubMed
Zanobetti A, Coull BA, Luttmann-Gibson H, van Rossem L, Rifas-Shiman SL, Kloog I, Schwartz JD, Oken E, Bobb JF, Koutrakis P, Gold DR. Ambient particle components and newborn blood pressure in Project Viva. J Am Heart Assoc. 2020 Dec 29:e016935. doi: 10.1161/JAHA.120.016935. Online ahead of print. PubMed
Cheetham TC, Dublin S, Pocobelli G, Bobb JF, Andrade S, Hechter RC, Portugal C, Munis M, Albertson-Junkans L, Salgado G, Wong L, Maarup TJ, Carroll K, Griffin MR, Raebel MA, Smith D, Li DK, Pawloski PA, Toh S, Taylor L, Hua W, Dinatale M, Ceresa C, Trinidad JP, Boudreau DM. Validity of diagnosis and procedure codes for identifying neural tube defects in infants. Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf. 2020 Sep 15. doi: 10.1002/pds.5128. [Epub ahead of print]. PubMed
Bauer JA, Devick KL, Bobb JF, Coull BA, Bellinger D, Benedetti C, Cagna G, Fedrighi C, Guazzetti S, Oppini M, Placidi D, Webster TF, White RF, Yang Q, Zoni S, Wright RO, Smith DR, Lucchini RG, Claus Henn B. Associations of a metal mixture measured in multiple biomarkers with IQ: evidence from Italian adolescents living near ferroalloy industry. Environ Health Perspect. 2020;128(9):97002. doi: 10.1289/EHP6803. Epub 2020 Sep 8. PubMed
Research
Better care for patients who drink alcohol
A new primary care approach improves alcohol-related preventive care as well as care for alcohol use disorder.
Research roundup
What's new in cannabis use research?
Use in pregnancy and screening in primary care studied by KPWHRI’s Kiel, Matson, and Lapham.
New findings
Research roundup on natural language processing and machine learning
Using doctor's notes to learn about drug reactions, dementia, and cannabis use.
Research
How did the pandemic impact hospital visits with animals?
Top pediatric oncology hospitals reported lasting changes to programs involving visits with animals.
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