The Statistical Methods for Health Equity Series is a monthly online series co-hosted by the Data Science for Health Equity community, the Alan Turing Institute Health Equity Interest Group, and the Department of Statistical Science at University College London.

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We are excited to announce the next instalment of our webinar series with speaker Dr. Briana Stephenson from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Specific details on the topic are as below:

Topic: 

The utility of mixture models to examine patterns of underserved populations

Abstract:

Mixture models have found great utility to uncover patterns in large, heterogeneous study populations. However, majority subgroups within that population can, at times, overpower the direction and characterization of these patterns, leaving information of smaller-sized subgroups overlooked and ignored. The United States (US) is a melting pot of different cultures and identities. However, much of the research which can drive policy and decision making is driven by data accommodating the majority subgroup in the population. This ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach can be problematic if interventions and policy decisions are based on study results that are not representative of the entire population it intends to serve. This webinar will discuss how we can generate flexible and innovative models from the standard mixture model framework to uncover patterns and behaviors of subgroups typically underserved, understudied, and consequently discounted in population-based research. 

Speaker Biography:

Briana Stephenson is an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She received her B.S. in Mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MPH in Biostatistics at George Washington University, and her PhD in Biostatistis at UNC Chapel Hill. Her work has focused on Bayesian nonparametrics and model-based clustering with applications in nutrition epidemiology, cardiovascular disease epidemiology, cancer epidemiology, and population health.

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Please direct any questions about the webinar series to Dr Brieuc Lehmann at b.lehmann@ucl.ac.uk.