Linwan Xu

Title: Statistical Analyses of Longitudinal Observational Data from Adults Living in Marginalized Housing,with Particular Attention to Cognitive Function Characterization
Date: Monday, July 31st, 2023
Time: 1:00PM
Location: Zoom
Supervised by: Dr. Joan Hu

Abstract: An ongoing longitudinal study named by Hotel Study focuses on investigating the physical and mental health condition of people who lived in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). The study’s primary objective is to provide better healthcare services for the target population. Study subjects could not follow closely the study’s predetermined visit schedule and thus have caused their study data with nonignorable missing. That has motivated this project. We aim to understand the data missing mechanism and then account for it in analyses of the subjects’ cognitive test results. We begin with a descriptive analysis of all the study’s available data. The analysis indicates that the study subjects who were recruited from different sources represent different populations. That leads us to focus on the subjects from single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels of the DTES in this project. We explore the frequency and rate of subjects’ study visits and their attendances to the cognitive tests over time by conducting regression analyses under various models. Subjects who joined the study early appear to experience less missing visits. Adjusting for the data missing, we analyze the study’s available cognitive test scores to identify important factors. We find that subjects’ IQ score at baseline, education level, and age can be highly associated with their decision-making abilities.