New Statistical Methodology to Establish Construct Validity for Childhook Risk

描述(由申请者提供)：这个指导研究科学家发展奖将支持候选人建立一个独立的研究生涯，作为一名方法学家，开发尖端的统计方法，并直接应用于酒精中毒和药物滥用的预防。职业发展培训领域包括：1)发展精神病理学；2)酒精中毒和药物滥用预防研究和方法；3)现代计算技术；以及4)使用非参数回归对纵向数据进行建模。拟议研究计划的具体目标是：1)开发一个新的贝叶斯潜在变量模型，从多个维度评估儿童酗酒的动态风险；2)开发一个新的半参数回归模型，验证儿童风险与青少年药物使用发展之间的联系；以及3)应用特定目标1和2中开发的方法来检验假设，该假设基于一项持续21年的长期酒精中毒高危家庭前瞻性研究的数据。这项研究开发的方法将有助于建立常用的儿童风险测量的结构效度。将开发两个统计程序并分发给预防科学家。基于经验数据得出的纵向模型在预测新儿童基于其童年风险测量的青春期物质使用的发展轨迹时应该是有用的。因此，它有可能提供有关个别儿童需要进行早期干预的时间和剂量的关键信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This Mentored Research Scientist Development Award will support the candidate in establishing an independent research career as a methodologist who develops cutting-edge statistical methodology with direct applications in alcoholism and substance abuse prevention. Career development training areas include: 1) Development psychopathology; 2) Alcoholism and substance abuse prevention research and methodology; 3) Modern computational techniques; and 4) Modeling longitudinal data using nonparametric regression. The specific aims of the proposed research plan are: 1) To develop a new Bayesian latent variable model for assessing dynamic childhood risk for alcoholism in multiple dimensions; 2) To develop a new semi-parametric regression model for validating the association between childhood risk and adolescent substance use development; and 3) To apply the methodologies developed in Specific Aims 1 and 2 to test hypotheses based on the data collected from an ongoing 21-year long prospective study of families at high risk for alcoholism. The methodology developed in this study will be useful in establishing construct validity of commonly used measures of childhood risk. Two statistical programs will be developed and distributed to prevention scientists. The derived longitudinal model based on the empirical data should be useful in projecting a new child's developmental trajectory of adolescent substance use based on his/her childhood risk measures. Thus, it has the potential to provide crucial information about the timing and dose an individual child needs for early intervention.