Spotlight on Research at COPH – Dr. Jane Meza’s work involves planning, conducting, and analyzing research studies. Biostatistics is used in public health to study the causes, progression, and treatment of disease. Biostatistical methods are used to carefully design public health studies and to analyze the data. Dr. Meza has worked on studies covering a

broad range of public health issues, including smoking cessation in adolescents, Parkinson’s disease, cancer treatment, and biological markers of cancer. She is also interested in statistical methods to model the distribution of a disease over a geographic area. These types of statistical models are used in public health to monitor outbreaks of disease and to plan distribution of public health resources. As director of the Center for Collaboration on Research Design and Analysis (CCORDA), Dr. Meza coordinates expertise in the quantitative public health sciences for design, planning, conduct, analysis, and interpretation of laboratory, clinical, and public health research studies. CCORDA also provides educational training opportunities for quantitative sciences graduate students and educational opportunities for public health, clinical, and translational investigators.

 Jane Meza, PhD, is the chair of, and a professor in, the UNMC COPH Department of Biostatistics, and the director of the UNMC COPH Center for Collaboration on Research Design and Analysis.