Drugs and Gluttony

Project Summary

Statistical Science majors Nathaniel Brown and Corey Vernot, and Economics student Guan-Wun Hao spent ten weeks exploring changes in food purchase behavior and nutritional intake following the event of a new Metformin prescription for Type II Diabetes. They worked closely with Matthew Harding and researchers in the BECR Center, as well as Dr. Susan Spratt, an endocrinologist in Duke Medicine.

Themes and Categories
Health, Public Policy
Data+
Year
2016

Project Results

The team constructed statistical models to evaluate single-person and two-person households, aggregating nutritional information over 4-week time spans. They found results consistent with clinical trial findings of reduced appetite while on Metformin, but also found significant nutritional changes approximately one month before the start of the prescription.

Download the Executive Summary (PDF)

Faculty Sponsor

Project Manager

  • Ya Xue, Senior Data Scientist, BECR Center

Student Mentor

Participants

Disciplines Involved

  • Public Policy
  • Economics
  • Public Health

Related People

Related Projects

Maximizing Data Communication for Faster Energy Access

Brooke Erikson (Economics/Computer Science), Alejandro Ortega (Math), and Jade Wu (Computer Science) spent ten weeks developing open-source tools for automatic document categorization, PDF table extraction, and data identification. Their motivating application was provided by Power for All’s Platform for Energy Access Knowledge, and they frequently collaborated with professionals from that organization.

Click here to read the Executive Summary

 

Data and the Global Corporate Bond Market

Jake Epstein (Statistics/Economics), Emre Kiziltug (Economics), and Alexander Rubin (Math/Computer Science) spent ten weeks investigating the existence of relative value opportunities in global corporate bond markets. They worked closely with a dataset provided by a leading asset management firm.

Click here for the Executive Summary

Construction Machinery and the Business Cycle

Maksym Kosachevskyy (Economics) and Jaehyun Yoo (Statistics/Economics) spent ten weeks understanding temporal patterns in the used construction machinery market and investigating the relationship between these patterns and macroeconomic trends.

They worked closely with a large dataset provided by MachineryTrader.com, and discussed their findings with analytics professionals from a leading asset management firm.

Click here to read the Executive Summary