Statistical and Data Services (SDS) Core The Statistical and Data Services (SDS) core will serve as the primary source of biostatistical consulting, analysis, methodological training, and database management support for the proposed 2016-2020 National Alcohol Center. Continuing the SDS core from the 2011-2015 National Alcohol Center, an organized system for consolidating biostatistical and database management services is proposed which will draw resources from a formal Alcohol Research Group (ARG) department structure designed for handling requests for biostatistical support from within the Center as well as from other ARG research projects. The current Statistical Services Department within ARG has 3 biostatistical support personnel with varying levels and areas of expertise and includes the addition of a new Ph.D.-level biostatistician with advanced methodological training and several years of experience working and publishing with ARG Center scientists. For this Center application, the SDS core has brought on as consultants some of the leaders in several areas of statistical analysis including the analysis of spatial data, latent variable methods, data from repeated cross-sectional panel surveys, analysis of clustered data including multilevel modeling, and the analysis of statistical mediation. Through the efficient consolidation of biostatistical and data management resources, the SDS core proposes to support the Center's research goals in the following three ways. First, the biostatistical staff in the SDS core will provide cutting edge biostatistical and analysis support services to each of the Center's research projects and cores. This support will be provided throughout the entire research process including hypothesis generation, survey design and monitoring of sampling progress, database development, analysis formulation and implementation, and research manuscript preparation as well as for Center-related grant development. Second, a continuing biostatistical methodology training aim is proposed to further the goal of increasing the methodological sophistication of Center researchers through the development and implementation of a series of statistical methods courses aimed at providing in-depth training for the motivation, theory, implementation, and inferential interpretation of a wide range of cutting-edge biostatistical methods currently being applied in the alcohol research field including analytic methods proposed in research projects in this Center application. As part of this training, Center researchers will also be trained in the use of several key statistical packages that implement these state-of-the-art-methods. These courses have already been offered over the 2001-2014 period by ARG biostatistical personnel as part of the aims of the current and previously funded Centers and have been found to be extremely valuable in raising the overall level of technical functioning of ARG researchers in their continually evolving field. As the final aim, the SDS core will serve to provide database management and development services to Center research projects. These services will include support for data security and training for data analysts in proper ARG programming and data analysis syntax protocols.
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