Description:

Hui Zhang, PhD

Candidate for the Division of Biostatistics/QDSC Faculty Position

Associate Member
Department of Biostatistics
St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital

Presentation Title
Major Statistical Challenges in Count Data Analysis

Abstract
Count data plays an important role in biomedical and clinical research, especially nowadays with the rapid biomedical technique progresses including next generation sequencing. However, using routine statistical model to analyze counts, such as Poisson model, often results in biased or even misleading conclusions. Primary challenges when applying Poisson model to count data include overdispersion and zero-inflation, which are commonly encountered in practice. In modern clinical trials and survey studies, the repeated measures of count data and incomplete observations add to complexity. In addition, the new advanced microscope techniques generate images involving counting process for data analysis. This talk will review these challenges in count data analysis and recent methodology progresses made by the speaker's group.