Introduction to multilevel analysis in public health

INSTRUCTOR:	Ana V. Diez Roux
DATES:	Thursday, April 6 and Friday April 7, 2006
TIME:	April 6, 9am-3:30 pm, and April 7, 1:30-5pm
LOCATION:	International Affairs Building

Topic
Multilevel analysis has recently emerged in multiple fields as an a analytical technique that allows the simultaneous investigation of the effects of factors defined at multiple levels on individual-level outcomes. This short course will review the rationale for multilevel analysis in public health, the fundamentals of the statistical approach and its difference with other regression approaches, and the basics of fitting different types of multilevel models with SAS. Special emphasis will be placed on the strengths and limitations of multilevel analysis in investigating social and group-level determinants of health.

Audience
This short course is targeted at researchers from the social and behavioral sciences and medicine. No prior knowledge of multilevel analysis is assumed. Understanding of linear and logistic regression is required.

Instructor
Dr. Diez Roux is an epidemiologist whose work has focused on the examination of the social determinants of health. Originally trained as a pediatrician in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she received an M.P.H. and a Ph.D. in Health Policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. She is currently Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan. Dr. Diez Roux's empirical work has focused on the social determinants of cardiovascular risk with special emphasis on the examination of neighborhood effects. She has also published on multilevel analysis and on the methodological challenges faced by epidemiology as it integrates population-level and individual-level determinants in understanding the causes of disease.

To register
This short course is open free of charge to faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students at Columbia University as well as faculty and postdoctoral fellows at other sites of the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars (H&SS) Program.  Enrollment is limited to 15; H&SS affiliates will have priority.

To register, please send an email to: chssp@columbia.edu.  Please include your mailing address, as readings will be sent to course participants.

The Health & Society Scholars Program at Columbia University is a postdoctoral program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It is a joint initiative of the Mailman School of Public Health and the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) at Columbia, and is co-directed by Bruce Link and Peter Bearman. For more information call 212-854-3694 or email chssp@columbia.edu.