Coordinating Center

NYU Long Island School of Medicine

Multiple Principal Investigator: Jasmin Divers, PhD

Dr. Divers is Director of the Division of Health Services Research at NYU Long Island School of Medicine. He is a biostatistician and statistical geneticist with a broad research portfolio that includes projects in type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes mellitus, diabetes complications, chronic and end-stage kidney disease and kidney transplant outcomes. He was a member of the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study (SEARCH) Coordinating Center where he worked primarily on the SEARCH registry, focusing on methods for estimating incidence and prevalence, evaluating trends over time and determining completeness of ascertainment. He is also co-PI of a National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities-funded grant to study genetic factors that determined allograft survival among recipients of African American deceased-donor kidneys. His previous projects focused on cardio- and cerebrovascular complications of type 2 diabetes in adults.

NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Multiple Principal Investigator: Lorna Thorpe, PhD, MPH

Dr. Thorpe is a leading expert in population health surveillance and performing population-based studies. She is professor and director of the Division of Epidemiology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in the Department of Population Health, where she also serves as vice chair for strategy and planning. Her current research focuses on the intersection between epidemiology and policy, with a specific focus on population-based surveillance, measuring social determinants of health, electronic health record-based research, and evaluating the impact of municipal policies on health. She currently leads several NIH and CDC-funded research initiatives, including a CDC-funded Prevention Research Center. She also co-leads the City Health Dashboard, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded initiative to bring city-specific data on health and drivers of health to the 750 largest cities in the United States. Previously, she spent 9 years at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and served as Deputy Commissioner of Epidemiology from 2004-2009 and began her research career as a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer in international tuberculosis (TB) control

About Our Center

Coordinating Center Responsibilities


Major Responsibilities:

  • Provide operational support to participating clinical centers (CCs) to guide study design and implementation, manage study operations, and facilitate communication with the CCs, the CDC, and the public;

  • Provide customized infrastructure for data collection, management, quality control, and sharing.

  • Provide expertise in developing and validating algorithms for ascertainment of cases of diabetes, diabetes type, diagnosis dates, and complications, and of appropriate denominators for rate estimation.

  • Provide expertise in biostatistics, epidemiology, and GISs to support analytical efforts.


Specific Responsibilities:

  • Develop data security plans and web-based systems for external and internal communication;

  • Develop tools for data upload, download, and management with appropriate confidentiality and security

  • Develop a space for collaboration, management and storage of study documentation (e.g., protocols, MOPs, technical reports)

  • Create and organize communication tools, such as newsletters and brochures

  • Host video conference calls and meetings for study investigators, CDC and NIDDK Project officers, and OSMB members

  • Work with the CCs to develop appropriate queries for extracting all relevant data for case identification and de-duplication, evaluation of completeness, and characterization of the at-risk population (denominator) for prevalence and incidence estimation.

  • Establish the agreements and mechanisms necessary for secure data transmission of and other information needed to generate relevant reports

  • Analyze data collected in the study, and in particular provide biostatistical and operational expertise

  • Coordinate and organize regular Executive, Steering and OSMB Committee meetings

  • Provide technical expertise and logistical support to all DiCAYA committees

  • Support and lead, as needed, the preparation of abstracts, manuscripts presentations, and all other dissemination efforts

  • Provide yearly estimates of diabetes incidence and prevalence to the CDC based on the agreed upon levels of aggregation

  • Perform the tasks needed for a timely and orderly closeout of DiCAYA at the end of the study period