Efficient and effective use of longitudinal data

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Information gathered in medical studies is often underused. Sometimes, this is because of problemswith data collection, where participants decline to provide answers to certain questions, or decide todiscontinue treatment before the end of a drug trial. Other times, a lack of simple tools to extractrelevant findings can restrict a researcher‘s ability to delve deeply into the data.Much existing data is longitudinal, where study subjects are followed over several weeks, months oryears. Longitudinal data is particularly valuable because it is possible to observe changes in healthconditions resulting from life events or clinical interventions. One convenient approach tounderstanding longitudinal data is to focus on these changes, using statistical models to separateout the predictable effects of past lifestyle and treatment decisions from the unpredictable aspectsof human biology and behaviour.This fellowship will provide statistical tools to make fuller use of longitudinal studies. These tools aredesigned to deal simply with the uncertainty surrounding incomplete patient records, allowingmeaningful conclusions to be drawn about disease prognosis and progression. Re-examining existingdata using these new tools has considerable potential to improve human health through betterscientific understanding.