Jennifer Bobb, PhD, aims to apply rigorous statistical methods to address important problems in public health. She is interested in statistical issues that occur when data that were not originally collected for research purposes, such as administrative claims data or electronic health records (EHRs), are used for addressing scientific questions relevant to clinical practice and health policy.
At Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI), Dr. Bobb collaborates with scientists across a broad range of research areas, including mental and behavioral health and social determinants of health. As an investigator with the Health Care Systems Addictions Research Network, she provides statistical leadership on pragmatic clinical trials at Kaiser Permanente Washington and other health systems. These include:
She has also developed statistical guidance to address methodological challenges introduced by pragmatic trials that leverage EHR data to define study eligibility and outcomes.
With expertise in environmental biostatistics, Dr. Bobb has led large-scale epidemiological investigations on the health effects of exposure to extreme heat and air pollution. She developed flexible modeling approaches for estimating the health effects of multi-pollutant mixtures that broadly apply to settings where large numbers of exposures may interact or have complex relationships with health, along with publicly available software implementing these methods. In recent work, she is collaborating on the Moving to Health study, which explores whether changes in the built environment, such as access to healthy foods and walkability, affect long-term weight and diabetes management. Work on this study spurred new methodology addressing statistical complexities of spatial confounding and time-varying health impacts.
Dr. Bobb is an affiliate associate professor in biostatistics at the University of Washington and an associate editor of the journal Biostatistics. She serves on the Committee for Funded Research of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and was elected the 2024 Chair of the ASA’s Biometrics Section. She has also served as grant reviewer for federal funding agencies and taught short courses on statistical methods for EHR data at national meetings. Before joining KPWHRI, Dr. Bobb completed her PhD in biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2012, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
Bobb JF, Cruz MF, Mooney SJ, Drewnowski A, Arterburn D, Cook AJ (2022). Accounting for spatial confounding in epidemiological studies of individual-level exposures: an exposure penalized spline approach. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A. 185(3):1271–1293.
Bobb JF, Qiu H, Matthews AG, McCormack J, Bradley KA (2020). Addressing identification bias in the design and analysis of cluster-randomized pragmatic trials: a case study. Trials. 21(1):289.
∗ Included in collection on The future of pragmatic trials
Bobb JF, Valeri L, Claus Henn B, Christiani DC, Wright RO, Mazumdar M, Godleski JJ, Coull BA (2015). Bayesian kernel machine regression for estimating the health effects of multi-pollutant mixtures. Biostatistics. 16(3):493–508.
Bobb JF, Obermeyer Z, Wang Y, Dominici F (2014). Cause-specific risk of hospital admission related to extreme heat in older adults. JAMA. 312(24):2659–2667.
∗ Recognized as one of the Papers of the Year by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Bayesian methods; analysis of observational data; pragmatic trial design and analysis; analysis of spatial-temporal data
Biostatistics; implementation science
Biostatistics; behavioral health; alcohol and substance use disorders
Biostatistics; built environment
Health effects of air pollution, extreme weather events; statistical methods for complex environmental mixtures
Prevention and treatment
The SPARC trial successfully implemented behavioral health care into primary care. On our website, you can access tools for behavioral health integration, as well as frequently asked questions and publications.
Bobb JF, Obermeyer Z, Wang Y, Dominici F. Cause-specific risk of hospital admission related to extreme heat in older adults. JAMA. 2014;312(24):2659-67. doi: 10.1001/jama.2014.15715. PubMed
Bobb JF, Peng RD, Bell ML, Dominici F. Heat-related mortality and adaptation to heat in the United States. Environ Health Perspect. 2014;122(8):811-6. doi: 10.1289/ehp.1307392. Epub 2014 Apr 29. PubMed
Savitz DA, Bobb JF, Carr JL, Clougherty JE, Dominici F, Elston B, Ito K, Ross Z, Yee M, Matte TD. Ambient fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and term birth weight in New York, New York. Am J Epidemiol. 2014;179(4):457-66. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwt268. Epub 2013 Nov 10. PubMed
Bobb JF, Schwartz BS, Davatzikos C, Caffo B. Cross-sectional and longitudinal association of body mass index and brain volume. Hum Brain Mapp. 2014;35(1):75-88. doi: 10.1002/hbm.22159. Epub 2012 Sep 24. PubMed
Roberts AL, Lyall K, Hart JE, Laden F, Just AC, Bobb JF, Koenen KC, Ascherio A, Weisskopf MG. Perinatal air pollutant exposures and autism spectrum disorder in the children of Nurses' Health Study II participants. Environ Health Perspect. 2013;121(8):978-84. doi: 10.1289/ehp.1206187. Epub 2013 Jun 18. PubMed
Bobb JF, Dominici F, Peng RD. Reduced hierarchical models with application to estimating health effects of simultaneous exposure to multiple pollutants. J R Stat Soc Ser C Appl Stat. 2013;62(3). doi: 10.1111/rssc.12006. PubMed
Study uses geographic data to track change over time.
Her expertise helps improve outcomes for people with substance use disorders.
A trial led by KPWHRI researchers found that adding nurse care managers helped more people get needed treatment.
A new primary care approach improves alcohol-related preventive care as well as care for alcohol use disorder.
Use in pregnancy and screening in primary care studied by KPWHRI’s Kiel, Matson, and Lapham.
Using doctor's notes to learn about drug reactions, dementia, and cannabis use.