Martina Pavlicova and Adam Ciarleglio

The annual Thomas R. Ten Have Symposium on Statistics in Mental Health took place May 12 at New York University and was hosted by the division of biostatistics in the department of child and adolescent psychiatry.

Thomas R. Ten Have (Courtesy of UPENN)

The annual event was founded in 1999 by Thomas R. Ten Have and Eva Petkova as a forum for statisticians working in the field of psychiatric research and, more generally, in mental health research to discuss ideas about new statistical methodologies and challenges. It includes participants from Columbia University, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and Cornell University.

Thomas Ten Have passed away in 2011. To honor his many contributions to statistics in psychiatry and the statistics profession, the symposium was renamed the Thomas R. Ten Have Symposium on Statistics in Mental Health (a.k.a. TTH symposium).

Every year, the talks given by the invited speakers cover a variety of areas in biostatistics. This year’s symposium was kicked off by Todd Ogden from Columbia University, who presented “Functional Data Modeling of Dynamic PET data to Characterize Psychiatric Disorders.” After lunch, Mary Sammel from the University of Pennsylvania gave a talk titled “Challenges Associated with Defining Time-Dependent Exposures and Outcomes: A Case Study.”

Additionally, Haiqun Lin from Yale presented “Longitudinal Mediation Analysis with Latent Class Mediators” and Judy Zhong from New York University presented “Trajectories and Change Points of Daily Function and Cognition with Aging in the Health and Retirement Study Cohort.”

The symposium ended with a keynote presentation by Irini Moustaki from the London School of Economics, who spoke broadly about the history and challenges of psychometrics research. Moustaki also shared some of her recent work in latent variable modeling and its application to missing data problems.

These talks highlighted the important role of biostatistics in psychiatric and mental health research.

The organizers of this year’s TTH symposium—Melanie Wall from Columbia University, Haiqun Lin and Ralitza Gueorguieva from Yale University, Justine Shults and Warren Bilker from the University of Pennsylvania, and Eva Petkova of New York University—emphasized the importance of discussion among biostatisticians in attendance and made sure each talk was followed by ample time to ask questions. To promote future and existing collaborations, the symposium concluded with an open bar happy hour at a nearby bar, followed by dinner at a Lebanese restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. A highlight of the evening was a traditional belly-dancing performance.