Heather M. Bush, Ph.D.

Biography

In June 2015, Heather M. Bush, Ph.D. became the Kate Spade & Company Foundation Endowed Professor in the Center for Research on Violence Against Women. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics, College of Public Health. Prior to her academic appointment in 2006, Dr. Bush worked as a Senior Biostatistician in industry and was responsible for the design and analysis of Phase IV studies, observational studies, health registries, and large simple safety studies. In this role, she was responsible for developing protocols, designing observational studies, and overseeing SAS programming for reporting and data analysis. Building on these experiences, she has helped to transform the statistical support provided to investigators at the University of Kentucky through her leadership roles with the Clinical Translational Science Center BERD, the Applied Statistics Lab (co-founded), and DATAQUeST (co-founded). Her work continues to focus on outcomes research, but with an emphasis on injury and violence, especially as it applies to women’s health and student populations. She teaches in the BPH, MPH, and DrPH programs as well as the PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics program; her teaching focus is in statistical consulting and practice. She is the author of an introductory textbook, Biostatistics: An Applied Introduction for the Public Health Practitioner. Dr. Bush has won the Provost’s Award for Outstanding Teaching, the College of Public Health’s Golden Apple Award, and Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Performance Award.

Teaching Interests

Dr. Bush teaches courses at the undergraduate, professional, and graduate levels; her teaching interests focus on statistical consulting and introductory applications of biostatistics (generalized linear mixed models and longitudinal data analysis). She has also developed the biostatistics curriculum with a focus on concepts for the University’s general education and the biostatistics methods courses for the Bachelor’s in Public Health.

Areas of Research Interest

Enhancing methodology for measuring outcomes associated with the dating violence, sexual violence or intimate partner violence. This includes:

• The novel application of statistical approaches in the evaluation of prevention strategies and policies for reducing violence on high school and college campuses.
• Improving data capture and quality in the investigation of these complex and multi-faceted outcomes.

Current Projects

The Applied Statistics Lab provides statistical support for faculty and students engaged in research across campus.

Dr. Bush has served as the lead biostatistician of the Kentucky Women’s Health Registry since 2007, and currently leads this work with Dr. Coker. The KWHR is a longitudinal health registry of women in Kentucky who are interested in participating in research to advance women’s health. The registry consists of a series of questions that involve physical and mental health, health behaviors, and life experiences, including those related to sexual, physical and psychological abuse. The KWHR is available to researchers as a participant pool and for secondary data analysis.

Dr. Bush and the DATAQUeST team provide the statistical support for C.A.T.S. (Campus Attitudes Towards Safety). CATS is an annual, longitudinal assessment of student perceptions and experiences that impact campus safety. #SeeSafety

Dr. Bush’s Externally Funded Projects include:

• "Life's Snapshot" seeks to evaluate the longer term efficacy of the Green Dot Across the Bluegrass for high school seniors into young adult life. This project also investigates risk and resilience factors for interpersonal violence initiation among college and career high school seniors. (NIH1R01HD075783 Coker (PI) Follingstad (PI))
• “Dahlia” Pain and Well-being in Older Women: The Roles of Activity and Motivation seeks to test a model in which qualities of the goal-directed and physical activities of older women determine whether and how pain affects eudaemonic well-being (EWB). When activity is externally motivated by guilt or control, pain will inhibit activity and activity will adversely affect EWB; when activity is autonomously motivated by interest or self-definition, pain will not inhibit activity and activity will enhance EWB. (R01AG046116 Segerstrom (PI))
• ACHIEVE: Achieving Patient-Centered Care and Optimized Health In Care Transitions by Evaluating the Value of Evidence. Project ACHIEVE’s long term objective will be to provide detailed, comprehensive guidance for the design, implementation and maintenance of transitional care strategies for hospital-to-postacute care that optimize patient and caregiver outcomes in varying healthcare contexts. (TC-1403-14049 Williams (PI))

Publications

Click here for access to the complete PubMed reference list for Dr. Bush.

Click here for access to the citation list for Dr. Bush via Google Scholar.