Registration is open for the 15th International Conference on Health Policy Statistics, which will be held January 6–8, 2025, in San Diego, California, at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay. Statisticians, health service researchers, health economists, epidemiologists, and policy analysts will gather to exchange and build on innovative ideas to improve health equity research. Following are several key features of the meeting.
Keynote Speakers
Whitney Robinson will discuss her experiences with interdisciplinary teams doing health services and equity research with examples from her work on gynecologic health using abstracted and structured electronic health record data linked to physician licensing data. She will argue that health systems often require compromising competing values, such as balancing the ‘cleanness’ of the data with the inclusiveness of the study populations, and that disciplines tend to prioritize these values differently. Robinson will make the case that explicit consideration of values and roles can improve work’s rigor and translation into practice.
Robinson is an associate professor and faculty epidemiologist in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine. She is also a core faculty member in the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy and a member of the Duke Cancer Institute. Her ongoing research links health care systems and administrative data to investigate why Black women in the south are treated with hysterectomy at high rates at relatively young ages. In addition, Robinson often develops novel study design approaches to research population-level inequalities using regression-based analytic techniques. Unifying themes of Robinson’s research are intersectionality, the public health critical race praxis, and life course theory.
Susan Paddock, executive vice president and chief scientist at NORC, will serve as discussant for the session.
The second keynote speaker is Sherri Rose, who will describe the challenges of conducting ethical research in the era of big data and AI. Ethics and fairness research for health AI spans many fields, including policy, medicine, computer science, sociology, public health, and statistics. Rose will discuss why algorithms are not neutral and data reflect societal bias. She will discuss team construction, minimum standards for research quality, rigor and reproducibility, least publishable units, and community-engaged research. Overarching themes are that centering health equity, developing methodology tailored to specific health questions, and rejecting harmful AI hype cycles are critical given the stakes involved.
Rose is a professor of health policy and codirector of the health policy data science lab at Stanford University. Her research centers on developing and integrating innovative statistical machine learning approaches to improve human health and health equity. Within health policy, Rose works on ethical algorithms in health care, risk adjustment, chronic kidney disease, and health program evaluation. Her honors include the National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award, National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award, and Mortimer Spiegelman Award, which recognizes a statistician under age 40 who has made significant contributions to public health statistics.
Haoda Fu, head of exploratory biostatistics at Amgen, will serve as discussant.
Workshops
The first day of the conference will feature 10 training workshops on topics such as statistical methods for policy evaluation and guidance for submitting trials to the National Institute on Aging. There will be an additional four workshops on the final day. Methodological topics will include heterogeneous treatment effect estimation, record linkage, Bayesian tree ensembles, Bayesian nonparametrics, feedback effects with time-dependent covariates, complex survey data, data-adaptive policy intervention design, and power analysis with planned error control for multiple outcomes. Other topics include synthesizing quantitative and qualitative methods for health policy evaluation and rethinking social identity data collection for equity. Additionally, the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science will offer a workshop on effective communication.
The wide range of workshops will offer participants opportunities to learn and hone research skills to advance health equity. Workshops can be added to a registration until December 4 for an additional $80 ($100 after December 4) and are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Students and participants from developing countries can add a workshop for $25.
Highlighted Invited Sessions
Concurrent sessions will take place on January 7–8. Invited and contributed sessions will cover diverse topics centered on this year’s theme of “Statistical Innovations to Improve Health Equity.” The 15 invited sessions focus on topics including methodological challenges such as complex study and survey designs, measurement error, data, and fusion. Many areas of real-world applications will also be discussed, from the overdose epidemic to mental health to LGBTQIA+ health.
Special Events
The conference will officially kick off the evening of January 6 with a welcome reception and poster session following the first keynote address. A continental breakfast will accompany the second poster session on the morning of January 7. Also on the program is a “Meet the Editor” session, which will bring together editors from methodological and applied journals to share their experiences, discuss characteristics of successful submissions, and highlight what health policy statistics researchers should (and should not) do as they seek to publish in high-impact publications.
An event of interest to students is a networking happy hour with several senior leaders in the field. It will provide an opportunity for students to gain insights into career directions. Additionally, the conference will conclude January 8 with a ceremony that recognizes students who received travel awards. Students also receive reduced conference and workshop registration.
Members of the Local Organizing Committee are planning activities to help conference attendees network in a less formal setting while also providing an opportunity to experience San Diego. The conference hotel, Hyatt Regency Mission Bay, is situated between downtown San Diego and La Jolla. It has several onsite amenities and is four blocks from historic Belmont Park. Limited rooms are available at a negotiated group rate if booked by December 12.
ICHPS Outreach Committee
Staci Hepler (chair), Wake Forest University
Sarah Lotspeich (co-chair), Wake Forest University
Nicholas Seewald, University of Pennsylvania
Elizabeth Eisenhauer, Westat
Ariadne Rivera Aguirre, New York University
Gary Hettinger, University of Pennsylvania
How can I participate in the upcoming conference
You can register for the conference at https://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/ichps/2025/registration.cfm. Details about the conference are at https://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/ichps/2025/index.cfm.