Upcoming Biostatistics seminar to focus on the use of psychometrics - Oct. 12

The SPH Department of Biostatistics will host its second monthly seminar on Oct. 12. Christa Lilly, PhD, will present “Use of Psychometrics in the Health Sciences, with an Applied Example of a Planned Missing Design” in Erma Byrd 101, 2:45 – 4:00pm.

The purpose of this talk is to give a broad overview of some of the research and projects Lilly works on at WVU, with a more detailed discussion of one applied methodology, Planned Missing Design, within a Department of Pediatrics and College of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences example.

This study (Greenbrier CHOICES) utilized a longitudinal planned missing design used to conduct a physical activity intervention in public middle schools (6th – 8th grades) in a rural Appalachian county. Program outcome measures were collected on 4,621 participants randomly selected at 13 points, with 33% participant random selection, and complete measures of demographic and anthropometric variables. Analyses focuses on exploration of missing data mechanism discovery.

Specifically, no differences were found on demographic or anthropometric variables, suggesting missing completely at random (MCAR) data on the planned missing data. Participants with missing data after random selection were more likely to be older, male, and in the 8th grade, suggesting missing at random (MAR) data. Lilly concludes that results suggest the use of the planned missing design allowed for the feasible evaluation of the intervention using modern missing data analysis to account for MCAR and MAR data.

The next monthly seminar will be held November 16, 2017 in G274.