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The Sleep Heart Health Study investigators
welcome and encourage other scientists and investigators, including trainees,
to collaborate with the study or to directly access SHHS data to pursue answers
to research questions for which the SHHS has collected relevant data or is the
appropriate vehicle to do so. Such efforts
are aimed at stimulating new research in areas ranging from advanced signal
processing to epidemiological investigations.
Two main groups of collaborators include: 1) physiologists and/or engineers
interested in developing advanced signal processing algorithms for efficient
scoring of PSG records, or for identifying novel ''hidden'' features that predict
outcomes; 2) clinical and epidemiology researchers interested in understanding
the relationship of sleep and sleep disorders to health outcomes in general population
samples.
A users group has been established for investigators and other
scientists currently using or interested in using PSG data from the SHHS to facilitate
communication and encourage collaboration.
Go to the NIH ListServ.
Becoming a Collaborator
Mechanisms for accessing SHHS data and
initiating new analyses include:
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Collaborate directly with a SHHS investigator to address questions
not currently being addressed by SHHS investigators and which require access to more data than is publicly available
(see below); i.e., when the research requires accessing more than a basic
file of demographic and sleep data, and when data from the first SHHS exam is
needed. Collaboration with a SHHS investigator ensures that the more complex data are appropriately
analyzed and interpreted in light of SHHS procedures and protocols and prior
SHHS research. Collaborative efforts include, but are not limited to, proposals
to analyze data (including the physiological data as well as covariate and
summary data) already collected in SHHS, or to collect additional data from SHHS
participants. Data access will require submitting a form that contains a data
request and collaboration and confidentiality agreements. Requests will
be reviewed within 4 weeks by the SHHS Publications and Presentations
Subcommittee. They will recommend approval or modifications to the Steering
Committee who will grant final approval. The investigator may identify a
SHHS collaborator, or request the SHHS Committees to suggest appropriate
SHHS collaborators. It is anticipated that most of these projects will be
funded by grants awarded to external collaborators.
Collaboration with SHHS investigators is encouraged for those wishing to access individual covariate data, the full PSG data, or unmarked PSG datasets. Information on procedures to initiate collaboration with SHHS investigators and copies of the data distribution agreement are available at the Sleep Heart Health Study website.
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Directly access a publicly available data set, derived
from a subset of SHHS-2 sleep studies (derived from the 2001-2003 SHHS
exam). These data include the raw physiological signals from the polysomnograms;
files of summary sleep variables (e.g., apnea hypopnea indices and sleep staging);
epoch by epoch listings of scored events (respiratory, saturation, stages and arousals);
and clinical data on age, sex, body mass index, waist circumference, neck circumference,
hypertension status, and history of: diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular
disease, emphysema, asthma, snoring, and the Epworth Sleepiness Score. Access to data
entails completion of a Data Use Agreement that indicates that the investigator
will utilize the data appropriately and include a waiver in all published work using
these data, indicating that analyses were not approved by the SHHS. Data may be
directly downloaded from the SERC web site through the PSG PhysioRepository, including downloading of edf
files containing the PSG data. Alternatively, the investigator may request data
distributed using an electronic media (CD or DVD) (with a small processing cost).
Initiating Collaboration with a SHHS Investigator
The following procedure is suggested to initiage collaboration with SHHS investigators. Full information is available at the Sleep Heart Health Study website.
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Review the documentation publicly available on the web concerning
sutdy design and objectives for the SHHS,
as well as the SHHS manual of operations and published
methodology papers.
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Contact a SHHS Investigator who may have relevant expertise or research interest
in the area to be studied. If it is unclear who should be contacted, the chairperson
of the Steering Committee, the principle investigators of the Data Coordinating Center
or Reading Center, or the chairperson of the Publication and Presentations Committee
may be of help in identifying an appropriate collaborating SHHS investigator.
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After discussion with a SHHS investigator, if it appears that the research proposed
is appropriate for a collaborative effort with SHHS and additional data collection is
required, a formal application should be developed with the SHHS investigator for
presentation to the SHHS Steering Committee. The application should include the following
information:
- Rationale for proposed ancillary study
- General description of the methods, including sub-groups to be studied
- Any additional data to be collected
- Time frame
- Brief analytic plan
- Source of funding, if needed
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Collaborative proposals which require only use of data already collected by SHHS
may be pursued by initiating of a SHHS paper proposal in conjunction with a SHHS
investigator.
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