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Qian-Li Xue

Qian-Li Xue, PhD

Johns Hopkins Affiliations:
  • Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Faculty

Languages

  • English

Gender

Male

About Qian-Li Xue

Professional Titles

  • Director of Biostatistics, Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology and Center on Aging and Health

Primary Academic Title

Associate Professor of Medicine

Background

Dr. Xue is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology and a biostatistician and quantitative scientist focused on aging-related decline in muscle function and multisystem physiological determinants of late-life vulnerability. The breadth of Dr. Xue's impact on research on disability, frailty, systemic dysregulation and cognitive decline at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions is evidenced by his over 150 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Xue’s principal authorship of papers in the Archives of Internal Medicine, American Journal of Epidemiology, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, and Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, and BMC Medicine during this span indicates his growing leadership role and national prominence in discovery on aging.

Centers and Institutes

Aging and Health, Center on

Clinical Trials Summary

Baltimore Experience Corps Trial

The Community Aging in Place, Advancing Better Living for Elders Trial

Contact for Research Inquiries

2024 E. Monument Street
Room 2-722
Baltimore, MD 21205

Phone: (410) 614-9625

Research Interests

Epidemiology of Aging, Frailty, Sarcopenia

Lab Website

Qian-Li Xue Lab

  • The primary area of statistical expertise in the Qian-Li Xue Lab is the development and application of statistical methods for: (1) handling the truncation of information on underlying or unobservable outcomes (e.g., disability) as a result of screening, (2) missing data, including outcome (e.g., frailty) censoring by a competing risk (e.g., mortality) and (3) trajectory analysis of multivariate outcomes. Other areas of methodologic research interests include multivariate, latent variable models. In Women's Health and Aging Studies, we have closely collaborated with scientific investigators on the design and analysis of longitudinal data relating biomarkers of inflammation, hormonal dysregulation and micronutrient deficiencies to the development and progression of frailty and disability, as well as characterizing the natural history of change in cognitive and physical function over time.

Research Summary

My research interest focuses on the natural history of frailty and its phenotypic components including sarcopenia and low physical activity. As a co-investigator of the Women’s Health and Aging Studies since 2001, I’ve been spearheading the analysis of longitudinal data relating biomarkers of inflammation, hormonal dysregulation, and micronutrient deficiencies to the development and progression of frailty. This work is providing a critical foundation for the next generation of research to delineate the synergistic effects of dysregulation in multiple biological systems on frailty. It promises to provide new biological insights and, thereby, inform the development of new interventions to treat the concurrent multisystem changes that occur in accelerated aging. In addition, I have recently developed an interest in methods to study the clinical relevance of aging-related loss of muscle mass and strength in older adults (referred to as sarcopenia), with the goal of establishing the prognostic value of intra-person variability and change in muscle mass and strength for long-term health outcomes.

Selected Publications

  • Xue QL, Bandeen-Roche K, Zhou J, Varadhan R, Fried LP. Initial manifestations of frailty criteria and the development of frailty phenotype in the Women’s Health and Aging Study II. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2008; 63(9): 984–990. PMID: 18840805

  • Xue QL, Buta B, Ma LN, Ge ML, Carlson MC. Integrating Frailty and Cognitive Phenotypes: Why, How, Now What? Current Geriatrics Reports. April 2019

  • Xue QL, Tian J, Walston JD, Chaves PHM, Newman AB, Bandeen-Roche K. Discrepancy in Frailty Identification: Move beyond Predictive Validity. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2020 Jan 20;75(2):387-393. doi: 10.1093/gerona/glz052. PMID: 30789645

  • Xue QL. Frailty as an integrative marker of physiological vulnerability in the era of COVID-19. BMC Med. 2020 Oct 23;18(1):333. doi: 10.1186/s12916-020-01809-1. PMID: 33092582

  • Chu NM, Bandeen-Roche K, Tian J, Kasper JD, Gross AL, Carlson M, Xue QL. Hierarchical Development of Frailty and Cognitive Impairment: Clues into Etiological Pathways. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2019 Oct 4;74(11):1761-1770. doi: 10.1093/gerona/glz134. PMID: 31120105

Courses & Syllabi

Statistics for Psychosocial Research

Honors

  • Nathan Shock Scholar, Nathan W. and Margaret T. Shock Aging Research Foundation, 1/1/11
  • Nathan Shock Scholar, Nathan W. and Margaret T. Shock Aging Research Foundation, 1/1/10
  • Travel Award, American Federation of Aging Research, 1/1/07
  • Distinguished Student Paper Award, International Biometric Society, 1/1/00
  • Tuition Scholarship, Johns Hopkins University Department of Biostatistics, 1/1/95
  • California Sea Grant College Traineeship, 1/1/91

Lectures & Presentations

  • A latent class model for combining information, The American Statistical Association's Annual Joint Statistical Meetings, Dallas, Texas, 8/10/98
  • Aging Phenotype Development: Getting Weaker vs Being Weak, The Gerontological Society of America's 62th Annual Scientific Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, 11/22/09
  • Analyzing trajectories of physical and cognitive function before or after a sentinel health event among older women, Lecture, The Gerontological Society of America's 56th Annual Scientific Meeting, San Diego, California, 11/24/03
  • Comparison of population-averaged and subject-specific methods for analyzing longitudinal data: a case study, The Gerontological Society of America's 54th Annual Scientific Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, 11/15/01
  • Compensatory Strategies as Preclinical Markers of IADL Disability, Lecture, The Gerontological Society of America's 56th Annual Scientific Meeting, San Diego, California, 11/24/03
  • Fitting Latent Class Regression Models with Ignorably Missing Covariates, The American Statistical Association's Annual Joint Statistical Meetings, Atlanta, Georgia, 8/9/01
  • Is the Association between Life Space and Incident Frailty Biased by Competing Mortality?, The Gerontological Society of America's 59th Annual Scientific Meeting, Dallas, Texas, 1/19/06
  • Is There a Causal Relationship Between Poor Sleep Quality and Frailty in Older Women?, Presentation, The Gerontological Society of America's 65th Annual Scientific Meeting, San Diego, California, 11/17/12
  • Joint Effects of Multiple Physiological Systems on the Development of Frailty, The Gerontological Society of America's 61st Annual Scientific Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, 11/22/08
  • Joint Modeling of Longitudinal and Survival Data: Assessing the Impact of Change in Lower Extremity Muscle Strength on Incident Falls, ADL and IADL Disability in Older Women, The Gerontological Society of America's 62th Annual Scientific Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, 11/19/09
  • Managing Missing Data in the Analysis Phase: the Stormy Seas, Older Americans Independence Center Annual Meeting, Bethesda, Maryland, 4/16/12
  • Modeling Health Trajectories Before and After a Sentinel Event, The American Statistical Association's Annual Joint Statistical Meetings, San Francisco, California, 8/5/03
  • Multisystem physiologic abnormalities in frailty: evidence for nonlinear system biology at the macro level, The Gerontological Society of America's 60th Annual Scientific Meeting, San Francisco, California, 11/18/07
  • Overview of Key Concepts of Missing Data Issues in Gerontological Research, Presentation, The Gerontological Society of America's 65th Annual Scientific Meeting, San Diego, California, 11/15/12
  • Pseudo maximum likelihood inference for latent variable regression subject to selection bias, International Biometric Society Eastern North American Region 2000 Spring Meeting, 3/20/00
  • Short-Term Trajectory of Grip Strength is Predictive of Long-Term Change in Grip Strength in Older Disabled Women, The International Conference on Sarcopenia Research, Orlando, Florida, 12/7/12
  • Studying disability in subset populations: a latent variable method for combining information, The Gerontological Society of America's 50th Annual Scientific Meeting, Cincinnati, 11/16/97
  • The Effect of Education on Transitions in Mobility Function in The Women's Health and Aging Study II (WHAS II), The Gerontological Society of America's 58th Annual Scientific Meeting, Orlando, Florida, 11/19/05
  • Trajectories of Change in Physical Activity and All-Cause Mortality: The Women's Health and Aging Study (WHAS) II, The Gerontological Society of America's 64th Annual Scientific Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts, 11/22/11
  • Type of Compensation May Identify Those Transitioning to IADL Difficulty, Invited Symposium: Opportunities for primary secondary and tertiary prevention of disability in older adults, The 18th Congress of the International Association of Gerontology, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 6/27/05
  • Using Longitudinal Data to Develop Aging Phenotypes, The Gerontological Society of America's 62th Annual Scientific Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, 11/22/09

Professional Activities

  • Gerontological Society of America, Co-convener, 1/1/11 - 1/1/13
  • Progress in Community Health Partnerships, Statistical Editor, 1/1/11

Expertise

Education

Johns Hopkins University

Ph.D., 2001

Shanghai Ocean University

B.S., 1991