Consumption of raw dairy products has been linked to diseases such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli and Listeria. Current retail sale of raw milk in Oregon is limited to disease-free goat or sheep milk. Raw cow milk is legally for sale on farms with less than three cows. Consumers have...
Throughout a large portion of our planet, malaria has been nearly eradicated or reduced to levels that are highly manageable, and many countries possess the means to effectively treat the disease. However, many areas of the world, such as Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, are still heavily burdened by malaria....
During the 1980s the sales and use of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) was on the rise. Many people used them for recreation, while others started using them on their ranch or farm for work-related purposes. As a result, morbidity and mortality rates also began to climb. It became apparent that the...
The etiology and transmission of bacterial diarrheal pathogens is complex, making evaluating the association between extreme climate and diarrheal illnesses in North America challenging. Changes in climate may impact the survival, reproduction, and distribution of pathogens that cause diarrheal illness. Evidence supports the hypothesis that reproduction, survival, and transmission ability...
Ixodes scapularis (e.g. blacklegged tick) is a hard-bodied tick considered endemic to certain regions within the United States. This species is considered a primary vector of Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi), anaplasmosis (Anaplasma phagocytophilum) and babesiosis (Babesia microti). Each of these tick-borne diseases represent a growing health concern within the nation...
The influence of increasing temperatures on human health has been widely established across multiple health disciplines. Short-term temperature changes are associated with an increased risk of hospitalization and death overall and in a variety of health conditions, such as cardiovascular disease. Even as humans can self-regulate heat stresses, the elderly,...
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was unprepared for such a massive challenge to global health. Individual testing kits and personal protective equipment were scarce. There were minimal ways to track the rapid spread of the disease, until researchers discovered that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,...
In this dissertation I will demonstrate a novel application of self-exciting point process models to mass shooting data. I will also introduce two adaptations to the traditional nonparametric Hawkes process modeling framework. One such modification allows for the estimation of the additional productivity introduced by an event that is not...
The variety of natural disasters provide different sets of characteristics and properties with unique challenges. One significant difference between hazard types is prewarning lead time, the amount of time individuals have from a potential warning to the disaster occurring. Rapid onset disasters may not provide an official warning about a...
Researchers/engineers in the field of software testing have valued coverage as a testing metric for decades now. There have been various empirical results that have shown that as coverage increases the ability of the test program to detect a fault also increases. As a result numerous coverage techniques have been...