Project Summary
The multidisciplinary nature of health services, policy, and outcomes research and the significant reliance on generating evidence in this field have created a need for effective communication and dissemination of advances in quantitative methodology. The 12th ICHPS (January 10-12, 2018), hosted by the American Statistical Association (ASA) and its Health Policy Statistics Section, will fill a void in the dissemination of statistical methods and tools in health services research. The conference theme is “Health; Statistical Science; Care, Policy, Outcomes,” focusing on the interactive relationship between health services research and innovative statistical methodology. The ICHPS takes place every two years and has a long track record of delivering on its promise.
The project team’s main aims are to create interfaces between methodologists and health service researchers, health economists, policy makers, and other stakeholders to exchange and to build on ideas for dissemination among the health policy community.
The scientific program includes invited sessions, workshops, contributed papers, posters, and roundtable discussions. Keynote speaker Robert M. Califf, MD, MACC, is Professor of Cardiology at Duke University School of Medicine and chair of the People-Centered Research Foundation (PCRF). An invited session “Novel Statistical Methods for Patient-Reported Outcome Measures” is highly relevant to PCORI’s mission. In addition, the conference will offer a workshop on “Guidelines for Causal Inference Methods in Observational Comparative Effectiveness Research” and another on “Advancing the Interpretation of Patient-Reported Outcome Data” that are relevant. All sessions and workshops are presented by leading experts in the field and provide dissemination of PCOR methods to methodologists and stakeholders. For the first time, the conference will invite patient advocates and community partners as part of a town hall on “Community Engagement and Partners: A Discussion with Health Workers, Patients, Researchers, and Community Partners.” The project team will also add a session in rural health research to focus on health disparities and to engage local researchers from South and North Carolina. Finally, the team proposes to add a science communication workshop (conducted by the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science) to the program to improve dissemination in the field.
Dissemination plans include one to two special issues of Springer’s journal Health Services and Outcomes Research Methodology comprised of conference papers. The project team will also print a series of articles in Amstat News (the leading magazine of the American Statistical Association) that are broadly accessible to the public. In addition, the team will provide a conference agenda, layman’s summary of the conference for public posting, as well as select materials for open access with permission of presenters.