Advanced Categorical Data Analysis for Alcohol Research

描述(申请人提供)：这是一个新的申请导师量化研究发展奖(K25)。申请者道格拉斯·斯坦利是密苏里大学哥伦比亚分校心理科学系的一名定量心理学家，他建议进行一段时间的职业发展和研究，旨在将他在方法发展方面的技能集中在酒精相关研究中的紧迫问题上。在密苏里哥伦比亚大学心理科学策展教授Kenneth J.Sher的指导下，申请者将熟悉与酗酒和酗酒有关的理论和实质性问题。此外，导师将指导候选人的资质，最终目标是将申请者转变为独立调查员。该过程包括详细的职业发展计划，其中包括授课部分(例如，与酒精研究相关的课程和研讨会)，以及重新进入一个成功的酒精研究环境(例如，立即融入导师的实验室，与系内其他开展酒精研究的教员互动，促进与附近的中西部酒精中毒研究中心的合作等)。关于他的研究计划，申请人计划将他在分类/聚类方面的基础广泛的方法论发展应用于特定领域的问题，涉及发现、验证和验证酒精研究中的亚类。该研究计划包括在精神病理学和人类发展并存的背景下调查酒精使用障碍之间横向和纵向关系的组成部分。此外，将专门制定方法来解决这些领域的问题。利用现有的数据集(NIAAA的NESARC数据)和拟议的导师目前正在建设的数据集，申请人提议开始一项研究计划，开发新的方法，并协调酒精研究背景下现有的、但可能是酒精研究人员未知的方法。 公共卫生相关性：这项研究与公共卫生相关，因为申请者将开发适合酒精研究的新方法技术。此外，将制定一套标准来验证酒精研究的现有结果和未来的发现，使应用研究人员能够辨别何时应用特定的分析技术。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a new application for a Mentored Quantitative Research Development Award (K25). The applicant, Douglas Steinley, a quantitative psychologist in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia, proposes a period of career development and research designed to focus his skills in methodological development on pressing problems in alcohol related research. Under the mentorship of Kenneth J. Sher, Curator's Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the applicant will become familiar with theoretical and substantive issues concerning alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Additionally, the mentor will guide the candidate with respect to grantsmanship with the ultimate goal being the transition of the applicant to an independent investigator. The process includes a detailed career development plan that includes a didactic component (e.g., alcohol research related coursework and workshops) and an emersion into a provenly successful alcohol research environment (e.g., immediate integration into the mentor's lab, interaction with other faculty members in the department conducting alcohol research, promoted collaboration with the nearby Midwest Alcoholism Research Center, etc.). With respect to his research plan, the applicant plans to apply his broad based methodological developments in classification/clustering to domain specific questions concerning discovering, verifying, and validating subtypes in alcohol research. The research plan includes components for investigating cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships among alcohol use disorders in the context of co-occurring psychopathology and human development. Furthermore, methodology will be developed specifically to address problems in these areas. Using existing data sets (NIAAA's NESARC data) and data sets currently under construction by the proposed mentor, the applicant proposes to begin a research program that develops new methodology and coordinates existing, but likely unknown to alcohol researchers, methodology in the context of alcohol research. Public Health Relevance: The research is relevant to public health in that the applicant will develop new methodological techniques that are appropriate for alcohol research. Furthermore, a set of standards will be developed to validate existing results and future findings in alcohol research, providing applied researchers the ability to discern when to apply specific analytic techniques.