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[Research]

My research broadly focuses on two areas:

  1. Health Informatics. I combine disparate data sources to estimate the effects of environmental exposures on individual-level health, applying computational methods in statistical learning, causal inference, and spatio-temporal analysis to large-scale clinical, demographic, and geographic data.

  2. Public Health. I combine large-scale field survey data, syndromic surveillance data, and novel mobility data streams for equitable humanitarian crisis response, in the context of the War in Syria, the 2018 Floods in India, the Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Bangladesh, and climate-driven displacement in North Carolina.

My dissertation develops methodological frameworks to combine disparate spatiotemporal data with individual-level health data, and uses these linked datasets to estimate the effects of environmental exposures on health. Specifically, I focus on quantifying the cumulative burden of climate extremes on population displacement, disease, and death. I apply quantitative methods in causal inference, statistical learning, geospatial analysis, and informatics to large-scale clinical, demographic, and geographic data.

As a Graduate Research Assistant under Dr. Emily Pfaff, I leverage causal machine learning (ML) methods within a target trial framework to assess comparative effectiveness of interventions as part of the National Clinical Cohort Collaborative (N3C) and the NIH RECOVER Initiative. This work also includes algorithmic approaches for automated cohort identification and computable phenotype generation using graph analysis, natural language processing (NLP), and dimensionality reduction.

With Dr. Barbara Entwisle at the Carolina Population Center, I apply methods in computational demography to examine how electronic health record data can inform research on population mobility dynamics.

projects

Active
Past (7)

CrisisReady

2020
Emergency Response Population Health
field epidemiology geospatial analysis

publications

Effect of Paxlovid Treatment during Acute COVID-19 on Long COVID Onset: An EHR-Based Target Trial Emulation from the N3C and RECOVER Consortia

Alexander Preiss, Abhishek Bhatia, Leyna V. Aragon, John M. Baratta, Monika Baskaran, Frank Blancero, M. Daniel Brannock, Robert F. Chew, Ivan Diaz, Megan Fitzgerald, Elizabeth P. Kelly, Andrea Zhou, Thomas W. Carton, Fei Wang, Rainu Kaushal, Christopher G. Chute, Melissa Haendel, Richard Moffitt, Emily Pfaff, N3C Consortium, the RECOVER Cohort

PLOS Medicine PDF for Effect of Paxlovid Treatment during Acute COVID-19 on Long COVID Onset: An EHR-Based Target Trial Emulation from the N3C and RECOVER Consortia Project for Effect of Paxlovid Treatment during Acute COVID-19 on Long COVID Onset: An EHR-Based Target Trial Emulation from the N3C and RECOVER Consortia

Identifying commonalities and differences between EHR representations of PASC and ME/CFS in the RECOVER EHR cohort

John P. Powers, Tomas J. McIntee, Abhishek Bhatia, Charisse R. Madlock-Brown, Jaime Seltzer, Anisha Sekar, Nita Jain, Mady Hornig, Elle Seibert, Peter J. Leese, Melissa Haendel, Richard Moffitt, Emily R. Pfaff, N3C Consortium, the RECOVER EHR Cohort

Communications Medicine PDF for Identifying commonalities and differences between EHR representations of PASC and ME/CFS in the RECOVER EHR cohort Project for Identifying commonalities and differences between EHR representations of PASC and ME/CFS in the RECOVER EHR cohort

Effect of Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir (Paxlovid) on Hospitalization among Adults with COVID-19: An EHR-Based Target Trial Emulation from N3C

Abhishek Bhatia, Alexander J. Preiss, Xuya Xiao, M. Daniel Brannock, G. Caleb Alexander, Robert F. Chew, Megan Fitzgerald, Elaine Hill, Elizabeth P. Kelly, Hemalkumar B. Mehta, Charisse Madlock-Brown, Kenneth J. Wilkins, Christopher G. Chute, Melissa Haendel, Richard Moffitt, Emily R. Pfaff

PLOS Medicine PDF for Effect of Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir (Paxlovid) on Hospitalization among Adults with COVID-19: An EHR-Based Target Trial Emulation from N3C Project for Effect of Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir (Paxlovid) on Hospitalization among Adults with COVID-19: An EHR-Based Target Trial Emulation from N3C

Geographically Skewed Recruitment and COVID-19 Seroprevalence Estimates: A Cross-Sectional Serosurveillance Study and Mathematical Modelling Analysis

Tyler Brown, Pablo Martinez de Salazar Munoz, Abhishek Bhatia, Bridget Bunda, Ellen K. Williams, David Bor, James S. Miller, Amir Mohareb, Julia Thierauf, Wenxin Yang, Julian Villalba, Vivek Naranbai, Wilfredo Garcia Beltran, Tyler E. Miller, Doug Kress, Kristen Stelljes, Keith Johnson, Dan Larremore, Jochen Lennerz, A. John Iafrate, Satchit Balsari, Caroline Buckee, Yonatan Grad

BMJ Open PDF for Geographically Skewed Recruitment and COVID-19 Seroprevalence Estimates: A Cross-Sectional Serosurveillance Study and Mathematical Modelling Analysis Project for Geographically Skewed Recruitment and COVID-19 Seroprevalence Estimates: A Cross-Sectional Serosurveillance Study and Mathematical Modelling Analysis

Coding Long COVID: Characterizing a New Disease through an ICD-10 Lens

Emily R. Pfaff, Charisse Madlock-Brown, John M. Baratta, Abhishek Bhatia, Hannah Davis, Andrew Girvin, Elaine Hill, Elizabeth Kelly, Kristin Kostka, Johanna Loomba, Julie A. McMurry, Rachel Wong, Tellen D. Bennett, Richard Moffitt, Christopher G. Chute, Melissa Haendel, {The N3C Consortium}, {The RECOVER Consortium}

BMC Medicine PDF for Coding Long COVID: Characterizing a New Disease through an ICD-10 Lens Project for Coding Long COVID: Characterizing a New Disease through an ICD-10 Lens

Identifying Who Has Long COVID in the USA: A Machine Learning Approach Using N3C Data

Emily R. Pfaff, Andrew T. Girvin, Tellen D. Bennett, Abhishek Bhatia, Ian M. Brooks, Rachel R. Deer, Jonathan P. Dekermanjian, Sarah Elizabeth Jolley, Michael G. Kahn, Kristin Kostka, Julie A. McMurry, Richard Moffitt, Anita Walden, Christopher G. Chute, Melissa A. Haendel, Carolyn Bramante, David Dorr, Michele Morris, Ann M. Parker, Hythem Sidky, Ken Gersing, Stephanie Hong, Emily Niehaus

The Lancet Digital Health PDF for Identifying Who Has Long COVID in the USA: A Machine Learning Approach Using N3C Data Project for Identifying Who Has Long COVID in the USA: A Machine Learning Approach Using N3C Data