Stat Club 327 Thomas February 18, 2015 Bethany C. Bray Outreach Director, The Methodology Center Research Assistant Professor, College of HHD

 What is The Methodology Center?  Our research projects  What’s in it for you? Resources from The Methodology Center

 Advancing public health by improving experimental design and data analysis ◦ Substance use disorders ◦ HIV ◦ Prevention and treatment  Interdisciplinary, collaborative research ◦ Use best ideas from any field ◦ True collaboration between methodology and application

1989: Methodology Center Founded 1994: Linda Collins named Director 1996: NIDA P50 Awarded 1997: 1 st Summer Institute 2001: 1 st NIDA P50 renewal 2004: Stephanie Lanza named Scientific Director 2005: 2 nd NIDA P50 renewal 2005: PAMT T32 Awarded 2007: 1 st 1- credit course

2009: Linda Collins named SPR President 2009: 1 st Green Team in HHD 2010: 3 rd NIDA P50 renewal 2012: 1st eNews 2013: Susan Murphy named MacArthur Fellow 2014: Bethany Bray named Outreach Director 2014: Susan Murphy elected member of IOM 2014: Runze Li named “Highly Cited Researcher”, named Willaman Professor 2014: New P50 Submitted

 22 PhD-level researchers from 13 fields ◦ Communication ◦ Human Development ◦ Engineering ◦ Epidemiology ◦ Psychology ◦ Statistics ◦ …and more!  17 at Penn State, 5 at U of Michigan

 A variety of support staff ◦ Administration ◦ Computer programming ◦ Dissemination and outreach ◦ Professional development ◦ Scientific editing

 Interested in the social, behavioral, and health sciences  A variety of outlets for dissemination ◦ Courses ◦ Publications ◦ Presentations ◦ Seminars ◦ Software (free, user-friendly, supported) ◦ Workshops

 Optimize behavioral interventions ◦ Multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) is a framework for engineering interventions in order to get the maximum impact from an intervention Multiphase optimization strategy (MOST)  Develop adaptive behavioral interventions ◦ The sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trial (SMART) helps build adaptive interventions so that treatments adapt to meet patients’ needssequential, multiple assignment, randomized trial (SMART)

 Understand complex longitudinal data ◦ Intensive longitudinal data (ILD) projects provide tools like the time-varying effect model (TVEM) for analyzing complex data, like smartphone data Intensive longitudinal data (ILD)  Infer causality ◦ Causal inference projects develop methods for inferring causality in situations where randomization is not possible, practical, or ethical Causal inference

 Uncover population profiles ◦ Latent class analysis (LCA) and latent transition analysis (LTA) allow researchers to detect subgroups within a population Latent class analysis (LCA)latent transition analysis (LTA)

 Optimize behavioral interventions ◦ Linda Collins (Center Director, HD FS) ◦ Acknowledge real world constraints ◦ Create the best possible intervention ◦ Build in efficiencies  Multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) ◦ Framework for optimization ◦ Uses factorial experimental designs ◦ Called for specifically in NIH PAs

 Develop adaptive behavioral interventions ◦ Susan Murphy (U of Michigan, Statistics) ◦ MacArthur Genius Grant ◦ Intervention decisions: how and when to alter treatment  Sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trial (SMART) ◦ Design for building adaptive interventions ◦ Test when to switch, how to switch, how to define nonresponse ◦ Called for specifically in NIH PAs

 Intensive longitudinal data analysis ◦ Runze Li (Statistics) ◦ New forms of data need new analyses  Smart phones, Biological/physiological devices  Time-varying effect model (TVEM) ◦ Extension of linear regression ◦ Regression coefficients vary over time  e.g., how do effects of craving, mood, and self-efficacy vary over time as people try to quit smoking?

 Infer causality ◦ Donna Coffman (TMC) ◦ Sometimes, observational data is the only possible data to be collected ◦ Infer causality when randomization is broken or absent?  Propensity score-based approaches ◦ e.g., HIV intervention for former prisoners targeted risky beliefs (unprotected sex strengthens relationship)  Beliefs cannot be randomized, examined if and how it worked

 Uncover population profiles ◦ Stephanie Lanza (Scientific Director) ◦ Bethany Bray (Outreach Director) ◦ Are there subgroups in the population that can be used to understand heterogeneity?  Latent class and latent transition analysis (LCA & LTA)

 Some of our major LCA & LTA contributions… ◦ LCA model selection and statistical power ◦ Associations between covariates and classes in LCA ◦ Associations between classes and outcomes in LCA ◦ Casual effects of covariates in LCA ◦ Causal effects of classes on outcomes in LCA ◦ Changing class membership over time in LTA ◦ Longitudinal patterns of change in RMLCA ◦ Latent class moderators ◦ Software development (SAS, Stata, R)

 Software ◦ LCA & LTA  SAS PROC LCA & PROC LTA, macros  Stata LCA plug-in ◦ TVEM  SAS macro suite ◦ SAS, Stata, R, web applets, stand-alone products

 Reading Lists  FAQs  Videos  …and more!

 Podcasts ◦ Informal intros to new research ◦ Practical how-to’s

 Brown bag seminars  One-credit courses  Special Interest Groups (SIGs) ◦ complex data, causal inference, mixture modeling  Summer institute on innovative methods

 Prevention & Methodology Training (PAMT) ◦ pre- and post-doctoral fellows ◦ two mentors ◦ methodology.psu.edu/pamt methodology.psu.edu/pamt  Taste of Methodology ◦ PhD required ◦ 3-hour introduction to an advanced method

 Consulting?  HHD’s Methodology Consulting Group  STAT Department’s Statistical Consulting Center

 Step 1. Go to: and sign up for the eNewshttp://methodology.psu.edu

 Step 2. On the homepage, scroll down and register for the site so you can download software

 Bethany C. Bray bethanycbray.wordpress.com methodology.psu.edu/people/bbray bethanycbray.wordpress.com methodology.psu.edu/people/bbray  The Methodology Center 204 E. Calder Way, Suite 400 State College, PA methodology.psu.edu methodology.psu.edu