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Highlights from the 11th International Conference on Health Policy Statistics: Statistical Science at the Forefront of Health Policy Research

1 February 2016 1,510 views One Comment
Kelly H. Zou and Recai M. Yucel, Co-chairs

The 11th International Conference on Health Policy Statistics (ICHPS) was successfully held from October 7–9, 2015, in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, under the overall theme “Statistical Science at the Forefront of Health Policy Research.” The conference was sponsored by the Health Policy Section of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and co-chaired by Kelly H. Zou and Recai M. Recai. The ASA issued a press release to the media before the conference began.

Throughout the past 20 years, the ICHPS has played a vital role in the dissemination of statistical methods in health policy and health services research. The ICHPS has fostered a great tradition of linking methodologists with health policy-makers to add focus and perspective to the development of new tools.

Among many enthusiastic long-time and new participants and attendees of ICHPS 2015, arriving from eight countries, including those traveling from Australia and United Kingdom, there were 246 registrants, reflecting the “international” nature of the conference.

The cutting-edge scientific program was both gem- and jam-packed. It included 10 workshops, 10 invited sessions, four topic-contributed sessions, four contributed sessions, two general sessions with two keynote speakers, a plenary speaker, two poster sessions, three HPSS major achievement awards, and an off-site Student Travel Award celebration with a fabulous and eclectic collection of seven statistician musicians.

The first keynote speaker, Gail Wilensky, is a distinguished economist and senior fellow at Project HOPE, an international health foundation. The second keynote speaker, Marc Berger, is vice president of Real World Data and Analytics at Pfizer Inc. The plenary speaker, Constantine Gatsonis, is the Henry Ledyard Goddard University Professor at Brown University, founding director of its Center for Statistical Sciences, and founding chair of its department of biostatistics.

Among the health-policy issues spotlighted during sessions at ICHPS 2015 were: Big Data approaches for health policy; comparative effectiveness research; health data confidentiality — past, present, and future; improving medical decision-making in the era of personalized medicine; meta-analysis and evidence-based medicine; measurement, implementation, and interpretation of patient-reported outcomes; quality performance analyses; social network analysis with applications to medicine and health policy; statistics and payment reform: toward better value in health care; and the medical expenditure panel survey: a national data resource to inform health policy.

A major highlight was an invited session on the advances in non-experimental causal inference methods for patient-centered health services and health policy research, organized by Elizabeth (“Liz”) Stuart, a member of the Advisory Panel on Clinical Trials of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Hearty congratulations go to Constantine Gatsonis of Brown University and Donald (“Don”) Hedeker of the University of Chicago, winners of the HPSS Long-Term Excellence Awards. Special congratulations also to Liz Stuart of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health for winning the HPSS Mid-Career Award. There were 15 Student Travel Award recipients. The HPSS also recognized nine members who became ASA Fellows in 2014 or 2015.

We are thankful for the generous funding to partially and financially support this conference provided by several corporations; the ASA; the Agency for Health Quality and Research, under grant (#R13HS024210); and private donations from a number of contributors. Acknowledgment goes to Chapman and Hall/CRC Press for donating books after Wilensky’s keynote presentation (left to right): Recai M. Yucel (ICHPS co-chair), Gail R. Wilensky (keynote speaker), and Kelly H. Zou (ICHPS co-chair).

Hong Zhao, one of the Student Travel Award winners presenting her poster.

Hong Zhao, one of the Student Travel Award winners, presenting her poster.

(from left to right): Mark Glickman, Sharon-Lise Normand, and A. James O’Malley reunited; Normand was Glickman and O’Malley’s post-doctoral advisor in the Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School.

Reunited (left to right): Mark Glickman, Sharon-Lise Normand, and A. James O’Malley – Normand was Glickman and O’Malley’s post-doctoral advisor in the Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School.

(from left to right): Brad Carlin, Mark Glickman, Jennifer Hill, Michael Jordan, and Donald Hedeker, who are band members of The Imposteriors.

Members of the band the Imposteriors (left to right): Brad Carlin, Mark Glickman, Jennifer Hill, Michael Jordan, and Donald Hedeker.

(from left to right): Zihao Zhang (Brown University), Fan Li (Duke University and a Student Travel Award winner), Chenyang Gu (Brown University and a Student Travel Award winner), and Joanna Wang (University of Technology Sydney) socialized and networked after the Student Award ceremony and social entertainment event; Wang, a post-doctoral fellow, traveled all the way from Australia; the rest are graduate students in the US.

Students socializing and networking after the Student Award ceremony and social entertainment event (left to right): Zihao Zhang (Brown University), Fan Li (Duke University and a Student Travel Award winner), Chenyang Gu (Brown University and a Student Travel Award winner), and Joanna Wang (University of Technology Sydney). Wang, a post-doctoral fellow, traveled all the way from Australia; the rest are graduate students in the USA.

 

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    Highlights from the 11th International Conference on Health Policy Statistics: Statistical Science at the Forefront of Health Policy Research | Amstat News