Tailoring Psychometric Techs for Epidem & Clin Appl

Recent advances in psychometric methods for categorical and other non-normal data, such asfactor analysis, structural equation modeling, and longitudinal modeling, have considerable promise forapplications in the fields of epidemiological and clinical research where they are not currently in commonuse. The major objective of this proposal is to determine how best to tailor these methods forepidemiological and clinical applications. Statistical techniques will be developed and their samplingbehavior investigated by simulated data. Real data will be used to try out the methodology in practice.The results of this research would be the basis for the development of computer software and/orpedagogical writings in Phase II. Given the lack of software for and pedagogical writings aboutpsychometric methods applied to epidemiology, it would appear there would be a demand for Phase IIproducts.