Public health data, strategies focus of new research and training center

KALAMAZOO—Researching and mapping health-related data in southwest Michigan to provide strategies to improve public health is the purpose of a new center housed at Western Michigan University.

Focusing on 11 counties in southwest Michigan, the Center for Health Data Research, Analysis and Mapping, or HDReAM, is a collaboration involving WMU's interdisciplinary health sciences Ph.D. program, the departments of Statistics and Geography, and Calhoun and Kalamazoo county health departments. The center also plans to provide state-of-the-art training in health-related spatial analyses and data mapping through the development of an HDReAM graduate certificate that is under development.

A celebration Friday, April 18, features a lunch, poster display and keynote address by a national authority on quantitative methods and statistical theory in epidemiology. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Sander Greenland, research professor and emeritus professor of epidemiology and statistics at the University of California, will speak at 10:15 a.m. in the Fetzer Center on, "Overthrowing the Tyranny of Null Hypotheses in Health and Medical Sciences."

Registration is requested by contacting @email.

For more information, visit wmich.edu/hdream.