🎥 Statistical Methods for Health Equity Webinar: Prof. J. Sunil Rao (University of Minnesota) 🎥
The Statistical Methods for Health Equity Series is a monthly online series co-hosted by the Data Science for Health Equity community and the Department of Statistical Science at University College London.
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We are excited to share the recording of the latest instalment of our webinar series with speaker Prof J. Sunil Rao (University of Minnesota).
Webinar Title:Â Distorted Variable Analysis
Abstract:Â Distorted Variable Analysis (DVA) is a tree-based framework for identifying, quantifying, and suggesting strategies to reduce disparities in observational data. DVA partitions data into subgroups whose outcome distributions differ with respect to a focus variable. Under certain assumptions, strategies to reduce disparities can be found by changing modifiable risk factors, which moves individuals between partitions. This is modelled with a second-stage classified mixed model prediction (CMMP) framework. The approach is demonstrated on synthetic data and electronic health record data. This is joint work with Henge Ke (Amgen Corporation) and Claudio Conversano (University of Cagliari, Italy).
J. Sunil Rao, Ph.D. is Professor of Biostatistics and Health Data Science at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He is also co-Associate Director of AI and Cancer Data Science and the Director of Biostatistics at the Masonic Cancer Center. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) and Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI). Â
His areas of research interest are primarily focused on cancer research these days and span the full continuum from the basic sciences (transcriptomic, epigenetic, proteomic research) to the population sciences (cancer epidemiology, small area estimation, health disparity research). He has published over 115 peer-reviewed publications and two important books (Statistical Methods in Health Disparity Research in 2023 and Robust Small Area Estimation (with Jiming Jiang) in 2025 - both published by CRC Press).
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