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Dr Spencer James on brain and spinal injury data Dr James leads clinical data science and injuries research at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, USA. His team’s research focuses on the intersection of medicine, data science, epidemiology and global health. We spoke to Dr James about one of his most recent projects: measuring the global burden of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI). About the study The study used a new method to look at every possible cause of TBI and SCI, such as a fall, a motor vehicle road accident, a motorcycle accident, inter-personal violence and self-harm. The team looked at the proportion of each cause that leads to TBI or SCI, then they summed them all together. While Dr James is quick to point out that a lot of research has been done in this field by talented people, it has been limited to specific locations or specific causes, making it difficult to assess the true global burden of these conditions. “I would argue that our study is more comprehensive than others that have been done in the field. We carried it out in every country for every age group, and for both males and females, across every different cause of injury. So, we are dealing with a huge volume of data, a huge number of statistical models and then a massive array of results.” The benefits The general premise of the research is that good science leads to a comprehensive body of results, which empowers people to make the best-possible decisions, whether they are creating policy, allocating resources or planning care. “Our results are intended to be available to a very broad audience. What we want to do is say ‘this is how many cases of TBI and SCI there are in the world’, ‘this is what the trends have been doing over time’, and ‘this is where we see variation between males and females’, across different age groups, across different countries or even across locations within a country. So, we are really trying to capture global patterns, national patterns, age patterns and time trends. “In the right hands, all this information can be used to say, ‘look there is a huge burden of TBI in this place that we hadn’t really considered, so we need to make sure there are care resources and good injury prevention plans in place.” American physician scientist Dr Spencer James was a presenter at the Global Burden of Disease Brain Summit (GBDBS), held at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in November last year. The Neurological Foundation provided funding to bring prominent researchers like Dr James to New Zealand. While he was here, we grabbed the opportunity for an interview. 12 Headlines