Mary Gray, Section 2010 Program Chair, and Robert Oster, Section 2010 Publications Officer

Meeting and Mixer
The section will hold its annual business meeting and mixer, open to all JSM participants, on August 2. A highlight of this meeting will be the presentation of the new TSHS Outstanding Teaching Award to a section member.Officers of the Teaching of Statistics in the Health Sciences (TSHS) Section are pleased to present the section’s portion of the JSM 2010 program. The section is sponsoring and cosponsoring a variety of sessions, posters, and roundtables on statistical education and training. Search the online program for a complete list of all TSHS-related activities and up-to-date session times and locations.

Invited Sessions

Teaching to Diversity, a panel featuring applications and the conference theme, will take place on August 2. Speakers from the United States, United Kingdom, and Peru will discuss the challenges and rewards of teaching statistics to diverse professional and geographic audiences and serving as Statistics without Borders consultants. This session is cosponsored by the Section on Statistics and the Environment.

The panel Establishing a Career in Statistics Education will introduce various paths that present themselves in this field. Scheduled for August 3, it is cosponsored with the Section on Statistical Education and the Section for Statistical Programmers and Analysts.

Focusing on the conference theme and cosponsored by The American Statistician, the Committee on Career Development, the Section on Quality and Productivity, and the Section on Statistical Education is the panel Statistics Training in a Data-Centric World. Speakers from academe and the government will participate on August 5.

Topic-Contributed Sessions

The panel Statistics in the Community: Present and Future, scheduled for August 1, will focus on establishing the reality of and prospects for professional service. This session is cosponsored with the Statistical Consulting and Quality and Productivity sections.

Statistical Literacy 2010 includes “Probability in Decline” and “The Undetectable Difference: An Experimental Look at the ‘Problem’ of p-Values.” The Section on Statistical Education is the principal sponsor for this August 2 session.

Consulting for Translational Research: Emerging Issues and Recommendations looks at the transition from genetic studies to personalized medicine, the role of bench scientists, regulatory challenges, and translational research and the T1-T2 continuum. Scheduled for August 3, its principal sponsor is the Section on Statistical Consulting.

On August 4, there is a panel on NIH funding of biostatistical research and training. Among the speakers will be representatives of funders and fund recipients. Cosponsors are the Biometrics Section and ENAR.

The panel Survey Data and Online Analysis Systems will feature these systems’ use in a variety of classroom settings. Scheduled for August 5, its principal sponsor is the Section on Statistical Education.

Contributed Sessions

An oral poster presentation will take place August 2 and include topics such as the relationship between attitude and knowledge in health care statistics, attitudes and beliefs toward statistics of health science students, the development of a noncredit research training program for clinical researchers, and respondent-driven sampling implementation.

On August 4, Biostatistics in the Health Sciences: Improving Literacy, Building Careers will examine issues in teaching nursing majors, dentists-to-be, public health students, and clinicians. Papers to be presented include “Building the Biostatistics Pipeline” and “Misuse of Statistical Terms: What Should We Do About It?”

Roundtables

TSHS is sponsoring three A.M. roundtables: Incorporating Lean Six Sigma into an MBA Statistics Course on August 2; CTSpedia Education Initiatives: Statistics Teaching, the Clinical and Translational Science Award Sites, and the Web on August 3; and Promoting Statistical Literacy Among Clinical and Laboratory Researchers on August 4.