GenSurg Receives 2 COVID Research Grants

The Division of General Surgery has received two Stanford RISE COVID-19 Crisis Response Faculty Seed Grants. Dr. Kristan Staudenmayer has received funding to create and study a database of aggregate COVID-19 data and Dr. David Spain has received funds for his project looking the disease's relationship to mental health.

"Given the high perceived life threat associated with COVID-19, a diagnosis might cause it to be more traumatizing. We plan to study patients admitted for COVID-19 care and compare the same risk factors and outcomes in 50 COVID-19 patients to those of patients admitted with other sudden, severe illnesses," said Spain, whose multidisciplinary team also consists of Dr. Lisa Shieh from the Department of Medicine and Dr. Eve Carlson from the Department of Psychiatry.

Staudenmayer's novel database will include zip-code level information on comorbidities, ages, socioeconomic status, housing density, and mobility.

"We will employ machine learning techniques to explore fully the relationships between these factors," said Staudenmayer. "Findings from this work can help drive a better understanding of the disease and will have implications relevant to public policy."