Sabria Jihan Khan

Examine associations between selected early life factors and natural history of asthma to middle-age under longitudinal settings for familial data set.

S.Khan photo

Supervisors names: A/Prof Lyle Gurrin, Prof Shyamali Dharmage, and Dr Melanie Matheson

Asthma in early and mid-life, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in later life are two very common respiratory disorders in developed countries such as Australia. To understand the dynamics of the disease and to ensure that both genetic and environmental risk factors are characterised free from confounding by shared influences, both longitudinal family data and appropriate statistical techniques are required. Focusing on the sib-pairs and twin probands TAHS, my aim is to study the association between underlying exposures and outcome for both Asthma and COPD using between- and within-sibship regression models, and to extend the specification of these models from a single time point (cross-sectional analysis) to a multiple time points (longitudinal).

Association between childhood asthma and allergies and adult chronic respiratory disorders in Sibship Data from Tasmanian Longitudinal Health Study