Nancy Cook

Biography

ScD, 1982, Harvard School of Public Health; MS, 1979, Harvard School of Public Health; BA, 1976, College of the Holy Cross

Research Interest

 Dr. Cook is involved in the design, conduct and analysis of several large randomized trials, including the Women’s Health Study, the Physicians’ Health Study, the Women’s Anti-Oxidant Cardiovascular Study, and the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL). She leads the Trials of Hypertension Prevention (TOHP) Follow-up Study, an observational follow-up of participants in Phases I and II of TOHP. This study focuses on the long-term effects of weight loss and sodium reduction interventions on subsequent cardiovascular disease, as well as on the observational effects of average sodium intake and intentional weight loss. Dr. Cook’s methodologic interests include the implications of measurement error and missing data, especially non-randomly missing blood pressure data, on longitudinal results. She is also interested in self-selection for exposures, such as use of aspirin, and the implications for causal analysis. In addition, Dr. Cook is interested in modeling observational data for developing risk prediction scores using clinical and genetic biomarkers. She has helped develop the Reynolds Risk Score for cardiovascular disease as well as improved methodology for comparing and evaluating risk prediction models, particularly risk reclassification. A description of this work, along with references and links to code in SAS and R, can be found at ncook.bwh.harvard.edu.