This project will be supported by colleagues in the School of Medicine and the PARADISE research group. ANCA Vasculitis is a rare auto-immune disease in which sufferers are susceptible to flares, whereby a person’s immune system attacks their own body. This project will involve analysing data measuring patient’s quality of life using the EQ-5D procedure. This is a standardised, well-established framework that is used in population health, which requires patients to evaluate their health with respect to 5 dimensions: mobility, self-case, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression. Each dimension is evaluated on a discrete 5 point scale, with 1 indicating no problems and 5 indicating the worst possible case. This produces a 5-dimensional value, e.g., 11111, or 21134, which is then mapped to a quality of life measure called a QALY (quality-adjusted life year) using a pre-defined scoring system. The data consist of EQ5D records of vasculitis patients, their disease status (i.e., whether they were currently experiencing flare or were in remission), as well as demographic information such as age, gender, etc. The goal of this project is to use these data to model how disease status, as well as other patient attributes, affect patient’s quality of life. Ideally, an initial analysis can be performed which models patient QALY scores, but we will go beyond this and explore how to model EQ5D ratings explicitly using ordinal regression models. This project would be suitable for a student with strong analytics skills, an interest in engaging with real world and clinical problems, and with good communication skills so as to collaborate effectively with members of the PARADISE group.
School of Computer Science and Statistics