Date:
Location:
Today's speaker: Briana Stephenson (Harvard University), “Empirically Derived Dietary Patterns using Robust Profile Clustering”
Abstract: Mixture models have been of great utility in exploring dietary behaviors over a wide set of foods and beverages in a given population, but are prone to overgeneralize these habits in the presence of variation by subpopulations. This research aimed to highlight unique dietary consumption differences by both study site and ethnicity in Hispanic/Latino populations in the United States, that otherwise might be missed in a standard mixture model of the overall population. We achieve this using a new model-based clustering method, referred to as Robust Profile Clustering (RPC). A total of 11,331 Hispanic/Latino individuals aged 18-74 years from the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (2008-2011) with complete diet data were classified into 9 subpopulations, defined by study site (Bronx, Chicago, Miami, San Diego) and ethnic background. Patterns were derived from dietary intake ascertained on the Food Propensity Questionnaire to identify consumption behaviors of the general Hispanic/Latino population and those specific to an identified subpopulation. In this talk, we will discuss these results, their implications for addressing minority population health, and future directions to improve nutrition epidemiology and disparities in a continually diversifying population.
The Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) meets all academic year, Wednesdays, 12pm-1:30pm, in CGIS K354. This workshop is a forum for advanced graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars to present and discuss methodological or empirical work in progress in an interdisciplinary setting. The workshop features a tour of Harvard's statistical innovations and applications with weekly stops in different fields and disciplines and includes occasional presentations by invited speakers. Free lunch is provided.
More information is available at the Gov 3009 website: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/applied.stats.workshop-gov3009