At the 2024 Center for Engagement in Disability Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (CEDHARS) Symposium, two members of the Department of Family and Community Medicine presented posters offering fresh perspectives on addressing disability-related issues. According to CEDHARS, the symposium’s goal was to highlight the challenges posed by ableism and propel the conversation toward actionable change. The center strives to bridge gaps in understanding, encourage collaboration, and inspire a collective effort to create a more inclusive and equitable society.
Salma Aly, a postdoc fellow, took second place in the postdoc category and presented two posters. The first looked at using machine learning models to predict rehospitalization one-year post spinal cord injury, using sociodemographic and baseline clinical assessments. This helps target "high-risk" patients for follow-up. Not only did the study result in an ML model that is 75.5% accurate in predicting event occurrence, but it also showed that clinical assessment scores measuring the degree of patients’ independence and the motor and sensory levels preserved after injury are the top predictors for rehospitalization.
Aly’s second poster compared the effectiveness of exercise programs for people living with multiple sclerosis when offered in-clinic versus remotely. This is a sub-study from the Tele-Exercise And Multiple Sclerosis (TEAMS) pragmatic trial. Initial study results found that the remote option is not inferior when measuring outcomes like grip strength and endurance but could not establish non-inferiority in patient-reported outcomes like quality of life and fatigue. Further studies will use different strategies in non-inferiority trial analysis.
Graduate research assistant Tanjila Nawshin, a Ph.D. student in Health Services Administration, presented a poster focused on assessing construct validity and conducting confirmatory factor analysis of the National Center on Health Physical Activity and Disability Wellness Assessment tool. Findings from this study will enable further refinement of the tool as needed and make it psychometrically rigorous for use in other wellness programs.
Aly and Nawshin's work is a reflection of the Department of Family and Community Medicine’s research strategy, which focuses on high-impact primary care research that is patient- and community-centered, including work that enhances health promotion, improves care for chronic diseases, and advances health care delivery.