Professor of Biostatistics and Data Science
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Janet A. Tooze, Ph.D., M.P.H., is Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science, Division of Public Health Sciences, at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She is a biostatistician with expertise in statistical methods in nutrition, with a focus on measurement error and analysis of longitudinal data. She has developed methods for estimating the usual intake of foods and nutrients in a unified framework with applications to nutritional surveillance and epidemiology, termed the “NCI Method,” the foundation of which is a statistical model developed by Dr. Tooze for repeated measures data with excess zeroes. This method is used nationally and internationally, including characterization of the population’s intake of nutrients for development and risk assessment of Dietary Reference Intakes in the US and Canada and to inform the US Dietary Guidelines. She was a member of the 2017-2019 National Academy of Medicine Committee to Review the Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium. In that capacity, Dr. Tooze led the interpretation for the risk characterization of the US and Canadian populations, to assess adequacy in these populations utilizing estimates developed from the NCI Method. She led the statistical validation of the Healthy Eating Index-2015, a widely used diet quality index, and of a new micronutrient index that captures food, beverage, and dietary supplement intakes. She has received three National Institutes of Health Merit Awards in recognition of her work in the advancement of dietary assessment, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She also provides design, analytic support, and subject-matter expertise on other research studies in the areas of nutrition, obesity, aging, and cancer control and prevention. Dr. Tooze received an M.P.H from the Harvard School of Public Health and a Ph.D. in biometrics from the University of Colorado.