Faculty Bio - Howard E. Rockette, PhD
Professor Emeritus
Education
BA, Franklin and Marshall College
MA, Pennsylvania State University
PhD, Pennsylvania State University
Research Interests
Primary focus of research has been the development and application of statistical methods for problems in the areas of clinical trials, occupational and environmental epidemiology and the evaluation of radiological imaging systems. Collaborative efforts in clinical trials have most often been in the areas of colo-rectal cancer and in the treatment of otitis media in children. Methodological research has included development of methods to estimate survival or system reliability. Research in occupational and environmental health has included estimation of cancer risk for various occupational groups including coal miners, steelworkers and aluminum reduction plant workers. Research in the area of radiological imaging systems has included development of methods to improve the design and analysis of radiological imaging systems. This has entailed application and development of methodology in ROC curve analysis. (Health Sciences Faculty Research Interests Project)
Past and Current Committees/Editorial Boards
Statistical Consultant (Associate Editor Status) - Annals of Epidemiology
Statistical Consultant - Cleft Palate Craniofacial Journal
Statistical Consultant - Academic Radiology
Research Advisory Committee Health Effects Institute
Study Section NIOSH - Safety and Occupational Health
Study Section NIEHS - National Institute of Environmental Health Science
President Risk Section - American Statistical Association
Current Research Studies
NIH
ROC Analysis of Imaging Systems Evaluations
Many of the investigations that are now carried out during imaging systems’ evaluations and comparisons include interpretation (reading) studies of normal and abnormal cases that are evaluated using ROC analyses. The purpose of this competing continuation proposal is to develop methodology to apply a well-known statistic to this problem and verify the proposed approach using both simulation and a large set of experimental data.
NIH
Efficacy of Short-Course Antimicrobial Therapy in Young Children with Acute Otitis Media and Impact on Antimicrobial Resistance
AOM remains the most frequently occurring infection for which antimicrobial agents are prescribed for children in the U.S. Concerns about the development of antimicrobial resistance on the part of pathogens that cause AOM have led to recommendations to withhold antibiotics unless symptoms persist or worsen. Indeed, we are currently studying whether this non-pharmacologic approach is clincally feasible in an NIAID-sponsored randomized, double-masked, trial for which data collection will be completed in early 2009.
NIH
Corticosteroids for Children with Febrile Urinary Tract Infections
Urinary tract infection (UTI) is the most common serious bacterial infection in young children. In approximately 15% of cases, UTI leads to permanent renal scarring. In this study, we will examine two strategies to reduce the incidence of renal scarring in children with UTI.
Selected Publications
Statistical
Bandos SI, Rockette HE, Gur D. Use of likelihood ratios for comparisons of binary diagnostic tests: underlying ROC curves. Med Phys, 37(11):5821-30, 2010 (Nov).
Bandos AI, Rockette HE, Song T, Gur D. Area under the free-response ROC (FROC) and a related summary index, Biometrics, 65: 247-256, 2009.
Song T, Bandos AI, Rockette HE, Gur D. On comparing methods for discriminating between actually negative and actually positive subjects with FROC type data, Medical Physics, 35: 1547-1558, 2008.
Bandos AI, Rockette HE, Gur D. Exact bootstrap variances of the area under the ROC curve, Communications in Statistics – Theory & Methods, 36(13):2443-2461 (19), 2007.
Zhang Z, Rockette HE. Semi-parametric maximum likelihood for missing covariates in parametric regression, Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, 58:687-706, 2006.
Zhang Z, Rockette HE. On maximum likelihood estimation in parametric regression with missing covariates. Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, 134:206-233, 2005.
Bandos AI, Rockette HE, Gur D. A permutation test sensitive to differences in areas for comparing ROC curves from a paired design. Statistics in Medicine, 24(18), 2005.
Rockette HE, Li W, Brown ML, Britton CA, Towers JT, Gur D. A Statistical test to assess rank order ROC imaging studies. Academic Radiology, 8(1):24-30, 2001.
Obuchowski NA, Rockette HE. Hypothesis testing of diagnostic accuracy for multiple readers and multiple tests: An ANOVA approach with dependent observations. Commun Statistics, 24(2), 285-308, 1995.
Rockette HE. An index for diagnostic accuracy in the multiple disease setting. Academic Radiology, Vol 1, pp 283-286, 1994.
Rockette HE, Arena VC: An Evaluation of the proportionate mortality index in the presence of multiple comparisons. Statistics in Medicine, 6(1):71 77, 1987.
Rockette HE, Antle CE, Klimko LA. Maximum likelihood estimation with the Weibull model. J Amer Stat Assn., March 1974.
Collaborative/Applied
Hoberman A, Paradise JL, Rockette HE, Shaikh N, Wald ER, Kearney DH, Colborn DK, Kurs-Lasky M, Bhatnagar S, Haralam MA, Zoffel LM, Jenkins C, Pope MA, Balentine TL, Barbadora KA. Treatment of acute otitis media in children under 2 years of age, N Engl J Med, Jan 13;364(2):105-15, 2011.
Casselbrandt ML, Mandel EM, Rockette HE, Kurs-Lasky M, Fall PA, Bluestone CD. A Adenoidectomy for otitis media with effusion in 2-3 years old children, Intl. Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolargngology, 73 (12): 1718-24, Dec. 2009.
Gur D, Bandos AI, Cohen CS, Hakim CM, Hardesty LA, Ganott MA, Perrin RL, Poller WR, Shah R, Sumkin JH, Wallace LP, Rockette HE. The “laboratory” effect: comparing radiologists’ performance and variability during clinical prospective and laboratory mammography interpretations, Radiology, 247: 12-15, 2008.
Gur D, Bandos AI, Rockette HE. Comparing areas under receiving operating characteristic curves: potential impact of the "last experimentally measured operating point, Radiology, 243(1):12-5, 2008.
Rockette HE, Occupational cohort studies in Encyclopedia of Quantitative Risk Analysis and Assessment, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2008.
Rockette HE. Occupational Biostatistics, Chapter 5 in Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, MA, William N Rom (Eds.), 4th Edition, 2007.
Gur D, Rockette HE, Bandos AI. "Binary" and "non-binary" detection tasks: are current performance measures optimal? Academic Radiology, 14(7):871-876, 2007.
Paradise JL, Feldman HM, Campbell TF, Dollaghan CA, Rockette HE, Pitcairn DL, Smith CG, Colborn K, Bernard BS, Kurs-Lasky M, Janosky JE, Sabo DL, O’Connor RE, Pelham WE. Tympanostomy tubes and developmental outcomes at 9 to 11 years of age, New England Journal of Medicine, 356:248-261, 2007.
Arena VC, Rockette HE. Software. In: Encyclopedia of Biostatistics in Clinical Trials, Second Edition. Armitage P, Colton T. (Eds.) New York, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Volume 7, 5019-5040, 2005.
Gur D, Sumkin JH, Rockette HE, Ganott M, Hakim C, Hardesty L, Poller WR, Syah R Wallace L. Changes in breast cancer detection and mammography recall rates after the introduction of a computer-aided detection system. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 96(3):185-190, 2004.
Rockette HE. Design Consideration for Clinical Studies, Chapter 3 in Evidence Based Otitis Media. B. C. Decker, Inc. (Edited by Richard M. Rosenfeld and Charles D. Bluestone. St. Louis, 2nd Edition, 2003.
Gur D, Rockette HE, Armfield DR, Blachar A, Bogan JK, Brancatelli G, Britton CA, Brown ML, Davis PL, Ferris JV, Fuhrman CR, Golla S, Katyal S, Lamomis JM, McCook B, Thaete FL, Warfel TE. The prevalence effect in a laboratory environment. Radiology, 228:10-14, 2003.
Hoberman A, Greenberg DP, Paradise JL, Rockette HE, Lave JR, Kearney DH, Colborn DK, Kurs-Lasky M, Haralam MA, Byers CJ, Zoffel LM, Fabian IA, Bernard BS, Kerr JD. Effectiveness of inactivated influenza vaccine in preventing acute otitis media in young children: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA, 290(12):1608-1616, 2003.
Rockette HE, Campbell WL, Britton CA, Holbert JM, King JL, Gur D. Empirical assessment of parameters that affect the design of multireader ROC studies. Academic Radiology, 6:723-729, 1999.
Casselbrant ML, Mandel EM, Fall PA, Rockette HE, Kurs-Lasky M, Bluestone CD, Ferrell RE. The heritability of otitis media: A twin and triplet study JAMA, 282(22):2125-2130, Dec 1999.
Wolmark N, Rockette HE, Mamounas E, Jones J, Wieand S, Wickerham L, Bear HD, Atkins JN, Dimitrov NV, Glass AG, Fisher ER, Fisher B. A clinical trial to assess the relative efficacy of 5-FU + leucovorin, 5-FU + Levamisole, and 5-FU + Leucovorin + Levamisole in patients with dukes B and C carcinoma of the colon: Results from NSABP C-04. J Clin Oncol, 17(11):3553-3559, Nov 1999.
Rockette HE. What evidence is needed to link lung cancer and second-hand smoke? Chance, 6)4:15-18, 1993.
Rockette HE, Gur D and Metz CH. The use of continuous and discrete confidence judgments in receiver operating characteristic studies of diagnostic imaging techniques. Investigative Radiology, 27:169-172, 1992.
Wolmark N, Rockette HE, Wickerham DL, Fisher B, Redmond CK, Fisher ER, Potvin M, Darres RJ, Jones J, Robidoux A, Wexler M, Gordon P, Cruz AB, Horsley S, Nims TA, Thurwell M, Phillips WA, Prager D, Stern HS, Lerner HJ, Frazier TG. Adjuvant therapy of dukes' A, B and C adenocarcinoma of the colon with portal vein 5 FU hepatic infusion: preliminary results of NSABP protocol C0 2. J Clin Oncol, (8)9:1466-1475, Sept. 1990.
Contact Information
309B Parran Hall
130 DeSoto Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15261
Telephone: 412-624-4427
Facsimile: 412-624-2183
Email: herbst@pitt.edu
Last reviewed: June 17, 2011
