BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Provide the following information for the key personnel and other significant contributors in the order listed on Form Page 2.
Follow this format for each person. DO NOT EXCEED FOUR PAGES.
NAME
POSITION TITLE
Gajewski, Byron J.
Associate Professor of Biostatistics & Nursing
eRA COMMONS USER NAME
bgajewski
DEGREE
(if applicable)
YEAR(s)
Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
BS
1993
Civil Engineering, Mathematics
Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
MS
1995
Mathematics
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
PhD
2000
Statistics
INSTITUTION AND LOCATION
FIELD OF STUDY
A. Position and Honors
Positions and Employment
2000−2002
Statistical Consultant to University of Florida School of Medicine
2000−2002
Assistant Professor of Statistics, St. Cloud State University
2002−2008
Assistant Professor, University of Kansas Schools Nursing and Allied Health
2008-pres
Associate Professor of Biostatistics, University of Kansas School of Medicine
2008-pres
Associate Professor of Nursing, University of Kansas School of Nursing
Honors
1997
2008
2009-Pres
Kosciusko Foundation Fellowship
Gajewski & Mayo (2006) study quoted in NHLBI’s RFA-HL-08-013
NIH Peer Review Committee, Clinical Hematology Special Emphasis Panel, reviewer
Other Experience and Professional Memberships
1996-Pres
American Statistical Association
2004-2008
Council, American Statistical Association, Kansas – Western Missouri Chapter
2002-Pres
Eastern North American Region, International Biometrics Society
2006-Pres
Reviewer Nursing Research
2006-Pres
Reviewer Research in Nursing & Health
2006-Pres
Reviewer Statistics in Medicine
B. Selected Peer-reviewed Publications (Selected from 83 peer-reviewed publications). Bott and Boyle
are underlined in publications below to indicate co-Is in this study.
Five most relevant to the current application (in chronological order)
1. Gajewski, B.J., Hart, S., Bergquist, S., Dunton, N. (2007). Inter-rater reliability of pressure ulcer staging:
Probit Bayesian hierarchical model that allows for uncertain rater response. Statistics in Medicine, 26(25),
4602-4618. (PMID: 17393413)
2. Gajewski, B., Lee. R., Bott, M.J. Paimjariyakul, U., Taunton. R.L. (2009). Distribution of data envelopment
analysis efficiency scores: An application to nursing homes’ care planning process. Journal of Applied
Statistics, 36 (9), 933-944.
3. Gajewski, B.J. (2010). Comments on ‘A note on the power prior’ by Neuenschwander, Branson,
Spiegelhalter. Statistics in Medicine, 29(6), 708-709.
4. Gajewski, B.J., Boyle, D.K., Thompson, S., (2010). How a Bayesian might estimate the distribution of
Cronbach’s alpha from ordinal-dynamic scaled data: a case study measuring nursing home residents
quality of life. Methodology: European J of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social, 2, 71-82.
5. Gajewski, B.J., Boyle, D.K., Miller, P., Oberhelman, F., Dunton, N. (2010). A multilevel confirmatory
factor analysis of the practice environment scale (PES): a case study. Nursing Research, 59(2), 147153.
Ten additional recent publications of importance to the field (in chronological order)
1. Gajewski, B.J., Sedwick, J.D., Antonelli, P.J. (2004). A log-normal distribution model of the effect of
bacteria and ear fenestration on hearing loss: a Bayesian approach. Statistics in Medicine, 23(3), 493-508.
(PMID: 14748041)
2. Gajewski, B.J., Thompson, S., Dunton, N., Becker, A., Wrona, M. (2006). Inter-rater reliability of nursing
home surveys: a Bayesian latent class approach. Statistics in Medicine, 25(2), 325-344. (PMID: 15977287)
3. Gajewski, B.J., Mayo, M.S. (2006). Bayesian sample size calculations in phase II clinical trials using a
mixture of informative priors. Statistics in Medicine, 25(15), 2554-2566. (PMID: 16345057)
4. Gajewski, B.J., Lee, R., Thompson, S., Dunton, N., Becker, A., Wells, V. (2006). Non-normal path analysis
in the presence of measurement error and missing data: a Bayesian analysis of nursing homes’ structure
and outcomes. Statistics in Medicine, 25(21), 3632-3647. (PMID: 16374902)
5. Gajewski, B.J., Petroski, G., Thompson, S., Dunton, N., Wrona, M., Becker, A., Coffland, V. (2006). Letter
to the editor: the effect of provider-level ascertainment bias on profiling nursing homes by Roy J, Mor V.
Statistics in Medicine, 25(11), 1976-1977. (PMID: 16680802)
6. Gajewski, B.J., Hall, M., Dunton, N. (2007). Summarizing benchmarks in the National Database of Nursing
Quality Indicators using bootstrap confidence intervals. Research in Nursing & Health, 30, 112-119. (PMID:
17243112)
7. Gajewski B. & Simon S. (2008). A one-hour training seminar on Bayesian statistics for nursing graduate
students. The American Statistician, 62(3), 190-194.
8. Gajewski, B.J., Simon, S., Carlson, S. (2008). Predicting accrual in clinical trials with Bayesian posterior
predictive distributions. Statistics in Medicine, 27(13), 2328-2340. (PMID: 17979152)
9. Gajewski, B.J., Mahnken, J.D., Dunton, N., (2008). Improving quality indicator report cards through
Bayesian modeling. BMC Medical Research Methodology 8:77. (PMID: 19017399)
10. Gajewski, B.J., Nicholson, N. and Widen, J.E. (2009). Predicting hearing threshold in non-responsive
subjects using a log-normal Bayesian linear model in the presence of left censored covariates.
Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, 1(2), 137-148.
C. Research Support
Ongoing Research Support
1K99NR012217-01
Reeder (PI)
08/15/2010-06/30/2015
National Institutes of Health
Timelines of Symptom Recognition, Interpretation, & Reporting in Heart Failure
This study aims to 1) describe patterns of patient Recognition and Interpretation of HF symptoms, and factors
that influence the timeliness in which patients Report (R-I-R) HF symptoms to health care providers and 2)
establish the content and construct validity of a theoretical and clinically-based interview questionnaire on HF
symptom recognition and interpretation and timeliness of reporting (R-I-R) HF symptoms.
Role: Co-Mentor
R01 NR009574
Thompson (PI)
08/01/2006-6/30/2011
National Institutes of Health
The Impact of Quality End of Life Care in Nursing Homes
The aims of this study are (1) to determine the influence on palliative care of communication, leadership, and
teamwork, (2) examine the associations among structure (staffing), non-clinical (communication, leadership,
teamwork) and clinical (palliative care) care processes and quality of end-of-life care, and (3) Explore Unruh
and Wan’s expanded structure, process, and outcomes model in the context of nursing home palliative care.
Role: Co-Investigator
R01 HL085397
Smith (PI)
09/01/2006-05/31/2011
National Institutes of Health
HF Group Clinic Appointments: Rehospitalization Prevention Clinical Trial
The primary aim is to test the magnitude of effects of the intervention on the primary composite endpoint of HF
rehospitalization or death and secondary endpoints of functional health status, quality of life and use of and
satisfaction with health care services.
Role: Statistician
1R01 NR011455
Williams (PI)
09/28/2010-06/30/2014
National Institutes of Health
Changing Talk to Reduce Resistiveness to Dementia Care
This study tests the effects of the Changing Talk (CHAT) communication training intervention for nursing home
staff on the common and problematic resistiveness to care behaviors of nursing home residents with dementia.
CHAT reduces nursing staff use of patronizing elderspeak communication, that was found to double the
likelihood of resident resistiveness to care. Determination of CHATs effect on resident resistiveness to care will
contribute evidence for nursing interventions to manage behavioral symptoms of dementia, to improve
dementia care.
Role: Co-Investigator
P20 MD004805-01
Daley & Greiner (PI)
04/01/2010-3/31/2015
National Institutes of Health
Center for American Indian Community Health (CAICH)
The CAICH addresses health disparities among American Indians, who face some of the greatest health
disparities of any racial/ethnic group in the US and who have not historically been well represented in medical
research or education in the health professions. The center addresses a variety of health issues and focuses
on two major health issues among American Indians, smoking and mammography. American Indians have the
highest rates of smoking and rising incidence and disproportionate mortality for breast cancer.
Role: Methods Core Director
Dunton (PI)
01/01/2003-6/31/2011
American Nurses Association
National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI)
The National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators is established and maintained to: (1) provide
benchmarking information on nursing-sensitive indicators to acute care hospitals for use in their quality
improvement initiatives; and (2) monitor local and national trends in hospital nurse staffing to facilitate the
American Nurses Association's Patient Safety, Nursing Quality initiative.
Role: Statistician
Completed Research Support
Gajewski (PI)
05/12/2009-05/12/2010
KU Research Institute
Bridging Grant for Integrated Analysis of Content and Construct Validity for Instrument Evaluation
Basic research for building preliminary data that supports the NIH resubmission of “Integrated Analysis of
Content and Construct Validity for Instrument Evaluation (IACCV).” The process of designing healthcare
questionnaires can be lengthy and inefficient. IACCV aims to make this process more efficient by using
statistical models to combine the information from experts and participants.
Role: PI
R01 NR009078-04
Smith (PI)
National Institutes of Health
Technological Home Care: Improving Care Giving
09/29/2005 - 06/30/2010
Specific aims of this study are to test the effects of a nursing intervention (FamTechCare) on family caregiver’s
problem solving ability, participation in health care management, health status, depression, quality of life, and
health care services costs.
Role: Statistician
R21 DA020489
Richter (PI)
07/20/2007-06/30/2010
National Institutes of Health
Describing and Measuring Treatment in Drug Treatment
The specific aims are (1) Identify why and how nicotine dependence services are offered, (2) Develop a
Tobacco Treatment Survey (TTS) and adapt for tobacco a measure of organizational climate and structure,
and (3) Conduct validity analyses and identify organizational attributes predictive of high-quality services.
NIH NINR RO1 NR08028
Taunton (PI)
07/01/2002-04/30/2007
Care Planning Integrity & Nursing Home Resident Outcomes
The overall aim of this study is to examine the integrity of the care planning process in nursing homes and
demonstrate the relationship between care planning integrity and resident outcomes.
Role: Statistician
N/A
Bott (PI)
07/01/2003-10/31/2008
Kansas Department of Aging
Kansas Nursing Facility Project
This provided to KDOA, nursing homes, and nursing home provider associations with information useful in
improving resident care and health. The last two years of the study was the development of a instrument to
measure the defining characteristics of a culture change nursing facility, and to evaluate the relationship
between facility characteristics (e.g. staff turnover, ownership status, urban/rural location), survey deficiencies,
and quality indicators with the constructs of culture change.
Role: Investigator
R01 HD047315
Carlson (PI)
04/04/2006-01/31/2011
National Institutes of Health
DHA Supplementation and Pregnancy Outcomes
To determine whether maternal RBC PL DHA can be significantly increased by supplementation, assess the
effect of DHA supplementation on duration of gestation, evaluate adverse events in women and infants in the
treated and placebo groups, evaluate the effect of maternal DHA supplementation on visual evoked potential
acuity in infancy, and evaluate the effect of DHA supplementation on the development of fundamental
measures of cognitive function in infancy.
Role: Statistician