 |
Advanced Psychometrics Methods Workshop |
Aging Brains in Aging Bodies
Travel Arrangements
Amanda will be posting ground travel schedules on Dropbox. Make sure she has your cell phone. Her cell phone number is (916) 606-6720.
Costs and Reimbursement - 2013
We will be able to use conference grant funds to reimburse everyone's expenses for conference fees, lodging, and meals. Because of NIH policies about paying for food from grants, it will be necessary that all participants who will eating at the Friday Harbor Lab Dining Hall pay for these cost upfront. You will be reimbursed for this expense. We will invoice everyone for meals. Unless you have indicated that you will not eat at the Friday Harbor Dining Hall, we ask you to bring a personal check for $132 ($33 per day Tuesday-Friday) to give to Amanda at registration. No credit cards please. We will reimburse you $132. If you would like to go out to dinner in Friday Harbor on your own one night or more, you are free to do so, but please let Amanda know in advance so that she can let the dining hall manager know. Our reimbursement from the grant covers about $12 per dinner and the rest will be up to you.
Conference fees and lodging expenses will be paid directly from the grant. You will not have to pay for these at registration.
Amanda will provide you at registraion with forms and procedures for reimbursement.
Please refer to the Reimbursement link in the sidebar and the FAQ on Reimbursement for general policy on costs and reimbursement.
Funding Update - May 29, 2013
The Notice of Grant Award effective June 1, 2013 has been issued.
Data Use Agreement
We are gearing up for the 2013 Friday Harbor Advanced Psychometrics Workshop and are getting very excited!
The purpose of this particular note is twofold. First is to explain a little more about use of data during the conference and potential uses of the data after the conference. Second is to encourage participants (that means you!) to do everything you can to ensure that the Data Use Agreement gets signed off by your institution.
1. Use of data at and after Friday Harbor 2013. This year the Workshop will focus on the theme of “Aging Brains in Aging Bodies,” and we will use data from the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study (Eric Larson, PI). ACT is a prospective cohort study that identified candidate participants based on a random selection from members of Group Health Cooperative who were at least 65 years old. All ACT participants are Group Health patients. ACT has long been a collaborative study between Group Health and the University of Washington, which have reciprocal IRB relationships with each other.
ACT has IRB approval from the Group Health IRB. In particular, ACT is Group Health’s first Data Repository. This means that the ACT study has developed specific procedures for data requests, and as long as we follow these procedures, we do not need to seek IRB approval for each release of ACT data to approved collaborators at other institutions. We keep careful track of our data releases, and report these each year to the IRB.
ACT procedures for data requests typically include careful consideration of whether there is overlap between the proposed data use and current work going on in the ACT study or with collaborators elsewhere. Unlike the case with ADNI, for example, we would like to facilitate relationships between groups of investigators interested in similar topics from the ACT study. We also feel strongly that the complexities of the ACT study recruitment and procedures need to be correctly described in papers, and that analytic plans need to account for these complexities. (You will learn more about these at Friday Harbor in a few weeks!)
For the 2013 Friday Harbor Workshop, ACT has agreed to allow Workgroup leaders to go where their inclination directed them, regardless of potential overlap with ongoing ACT analyses. In fitting with the idea of Friday Harbor as a Workshop experience, these data were conceptualized as facilitating learning and analyses in a Workshop environment. So the ACT study approval is only for analyses conducted at the Friday Harbor workshop.
We hope and expect that many if not all of the Workgroups will identify one or more promising avenues to pursue for publication. Such pursuit following the Workshop will necessitate submission of an ACT study proposal using the usual ACT policies and procedures. ACT investigators including Paul Crane will be happy to help with completing the ACT study proposal, and will also be available to discuss potential overlap with ongoing ACT investigations. Upon approval of the ACT study proposal, and confirmation that appropriate data use agreements (see below) are in place, then a data set can be released to the study team.
The above description explains why we will need to have all attendees remove ACT study data from their laptops before leaving Friday Harbor, and to verify electronically that they have done so.
2. Data use agreements. Because GH is a healthcare provider, ACT data are subject to HIPAA regulations. In particular, dates and ages 90 or over are defined as patient identifiers by law in HIPAA. The ACT cohort is marked by its longevity; 10% of all study visits have occurred in people ages 90 or over. Additionally, many of the clinical data elements have specific dates associated with them. Since Workgroups will want to analyze the entire ACT data set including specific dates and individuals age 90 and over , we need a Data Use Agreement (DUA) with each Friday Harbor attendee to be compliant with HIPAA. Each of you should have received a DUA very recently to secure signatures from yourself and from your institution. We cannot emphasize sufficiently the importance of obtaining these signatures in advance of attendance at Friday Harbor. We really need 100% success in this endeavor. We have just over a month for this, which should be sufficient time to make this happen. Please be in close contact with institutional officials to do everything you can to secure appropriate signatures. The Data Use Agreement specifies that you won’t try to do anything weird with the data during the week and that you will remove it at the end of the week before leaving Friday Harbor. That is all we need the signature to cover. Because it is HIPAA and a DUA, this had to be vetted by Group Health’s attorneys, so there is some legal verbiage accompanying that basic understanding (don’t do anything weird with the data during the week, remove it at the end of the week before leaving Friday Harbor). If there are going to be any issues with signing officials at your institution, we need to find that out incredibly soon to make sure we have a chance to resolve those difficulties before the Workshop.
We are really looking forward to this year, it promises to be exciting and interdisciplinary, with a lot of interesting ideas being pursued with a great data set. We hope the above information is useful. Please contact Paul Crane if there are questions about the use of data or with the DUAs. And please track the DUAs closely; we really need them all signed!!!
Introducing Amanda Simmons
Amanda Simmons has signed on as conference coordinator for 2013. She will be in contact with attendees to arrange travel and logistics. She can also answer questions, and can be emailed at: amanda.simmons@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu.
Conference Description
The tenth annual conference on the application of modern psychometric methods to measurement issues in cognitive aging research will be held June 10-June 15, 2013 at the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories in the San Juan Islands, WA.
This year's theme will be "Aging Brains in Aging Bodies." We will use data from the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study. ACT is a prospective longitudinal cohort study of older adults from Group Health Cooperative, a Seattle-area Health Maintenance Organization. ACT data include data collected by the ACT study, data generated by clinical care, genetic data, and neuropathology data from autopsies on 470 people, over 25% of the decedents. Since 1994, the study has enrolled some 4,700 participants. Enrollment has been in three phases. An initial cohort of 2,581 was enrolled in 1994-1996. An expansion cohort of 811 was enrolled in 2000-2002. Continuous enrollment began in 2005, with a target to keep 2,000 people actively enrolled in the study and at-risk to develop dementia.
The overall training goal for the 2013 workshop is to consider ways of integrating information on health to improve our understanding of late-life brain outcomes. Because of its setting within a healthcare delivery system, ACT includes data sources that are either completely unavailable or difficult to obtain from other studies. ACT study data include extensive epidemiological data with large overlap with other studies. Group Health data available for the entire cohort include pharmacy data for every prescription medication since 1977, and all clinical laboratory data since 1988. For example, diabetes is an important medical condition, and there is great interest in potential brain effects of diabetes treatments. Of the 4,700 ACT participants, there were 9 who were treated for diabetes in 1977. Every other ACT participant’s complete lifetime diabetes treatment regimen is completely captured with pharmacy data, and all treatments since 1977 are also captured for the 9 people who were already treated for diabetes in 1977.
ACT has also begun an ambitious medical records abstraction project to collect research-quality data from clinical records. The study is up to date with the autopsy cohort of 470 people. The mean (SD) years of data available is 33 (11) years for this cohort. Data such as weights, blood pressures, ejection fractions, laboratory tests preceding 1988, medications preceding 1977, a variety of conditions, and so on – over 100 data elements are captured in the medical records abstraction project. These data facilitate unprecedented opportunities for clinical-pathological correlation studies.
Traditionally, the ACT study has focused on three types of late-life brain outcomes: time to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease; global cognition as measured by the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI) scored using item response theory (IRT); and neuropathological findings at autopsy. The analytic team has experience with time-varying covariates, integrating clinical data captured at sporadic intervals into risk models, sensitivity analyses considering a variety of concerns, mixed effects models to account for missing data, and use of marginal structural models to address selection in the autopsy cohort.
The first day of the conference will include a scientific summary of the ACT study and talks about the broader literature on how health affects cognition and the brain in late life. Speakers will include Drs. Eric Larson, Lon White, and Tom Montine.
As in the previous conferences, the workshop will be organized around workgroups that will perform analyses related to scientific manuscripts. Our goal will be to substantially complete analyses during the week and then organize the workgroups for further interactions to complete the manuscripts. Workgroups proposed for this meeting include the following research questions:
These proposed workgroups are tentative at this stage and may be modified based on a variety of factors. Furthermore, we welcome ideas from applicants about additional workgroups that might be incorporated into the Workshop.
Diversity in substantive and methodological expertise of participants will be emphasized so that the conference promotes learning for all participants and establishes an informal network that will enhance research on cognitive changes associated with aging.
The Friday Harbor Laboratories are located on San Juan Island, part of an archipelago that lies between the mainland and Vancouver Island. The 484-acre tract of land on which the Laboratories are situated, and the marine waters of the region in general, are biological preserves. We will stay in the dorm rooms (or in hotels in town) and eat in the rustic dining hall at the harbor shore. Extra-curricular activities on the island include walks/runs on the trails that weave through the forests on the island, whale watching, kayaking, and beach combing. The Friday Harbor facilities are spartan; lodging is in simple dormitory rooms with shared bathroom facilities, and while the food is excellent, dining is cafeteria style. This is not a resort, but the setting is beautiful and very conducive to informal and productive interaction. The town of Friday Harbor may be reached by scheduled air service from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, scheduled seaplane service from downtown Seattle, and by Washington State Ferries from Anacortes, about 70 miles north of Seattle. We will provide transportation from the Seattle airport to Friday Harbor via vans and ferries for conference participants.
Conference participants will have a common interest in practical application of psychometric and statistical data analytic methods to research on aging, but will have varied backgrounds in terms of specific areas of expertise and level of training and experience. Attendees will include psychologists, statisticians, psychometricians, and physicians. Undergraduates and graduate students and postdoctoral trainees are encouraged to attend. Our selection process aims for a total of 50 attendees.
This conference was supported by a conference grant from the National Institute on Aging (R13 AG030995) from 2008-2012. We submitted a competing renewal that was favorably reviewed. We expect that it will be funded for 2013-2017, but have no guarantee at this time pending finalization of the NIA budget for 2013. If we do receive grant funding, we will be able to provide full support for travel, lodging, meals and conference fees for many attendees. We may be able to consider additional attendees who will need to provide their own funding. Anticipated costs for professionals (including lodging, meals, conference and facility fees) are about $700, and for undergraduate and graduate students are about $500. These cost estimates do not include the expense of travel to and from Seattle.
We hope to see you in Friday Harbor this summer!
Psychometric Workshop Program Committee,
Paul K Crane MD, MPH, University of Washington
Laura Gibbons PhD, University of Washington
M. Maria Glymour, SD, Harvard School of Public Health
Scott Hofer, Ph.D., University of Victoria
Richard N. Jones ScD, Hebrew Senior Life
Jennifer Manly PhD, Columbia University
Dan Mungas PhD, University of California Davis
Contacts
If you have questions, please contact Amanda Simmons (amanda.simmons@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu), Dan Mungas (dmmungas@ucdavis.edu) or Paul Crane (pcrane@u.washington.edu). Amanda can be reached by phone at (916)734-5284, and during the week of the conference can be reached by cell phone at (916)606-6720.Mission Statement
The overall mission of the “Advanced Psychometric Methods for Cognitive Aging Research” conference series is to promote the use of state of the art psychometric and related data analytic methods in cognitive aging research. Specific objectives are:
1) expose developing and established researchers in cognitive aging to modern psychometric techniques
2) expose experts in psychometric theory and methods to the practical and theoretical concerns of cognitive aging research
3) encourage collaborative research and production of manuscripts based on the interactions of researchers, psychometricians, and statisticians during these conferences.
Conference participants will have diverse backgrounds in terms of level of training, experience, areas of expertise, gender and ethnicity. Each conference will be organized around an existing dataset from studies that have been highly influential in cognitive aging research. Each meeting will include didactic training on advanced psychometric and statistical methods relevant to these studies, and a major part of the program will be devoted to data analyses that address specific scientific hypotheses relevant to the parent studies. Workgroups will continue to interact after the conference to follow these analyses to completion of scientific manuscripts.
Didactic training will address basics of item response theory, latent variable modeling, and other data analytic methods relevant to the studies and data sets being used. More in depth mentored experience in using these methods will be provided during the workgroups. Diversity in substantive and methodological expertise of participants will be emphasized so that the conference promotes learning for all participants and establishes an informal network to enhance research on cognitive changes associated with aging.