Mari Palta received her Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in 1977 and has been a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin- Madison since 1987 in Population Health Sciences, and since 1999 in Biostatistics and Medical Informatics.  Professor Palta's research interests/specialization include statistical methods for epidemiology and longitudinal studies and, in particular, methods to analyze longitudinal data with missing or unknown predictors, selection bias and measurement error. Her population health focus areas are in pediatrics and respiratory health. Research Interests: Dr, Palta directs and participates in several rather different research projects, and has an over-riding interest in evaluating and applying new methodology Project 1 (Newborn Lung Project): This research follows a cohort of all Wisconsin very low birth weight children born during 2003 and 2004. The project collected a large amount of baseline data from 17 NICUs, and at age 2 interviews with both very low birth weight children normal birth weight controls. Data include health problems, and also assessments of quality of life, daily function and behaviors. Lung function testing, sleep studies and assessments of parental stress (by Dr. Whitney Witt) were done at age 4. Project 2 (Wisconsin Diabetes Registry Study): The project is following a cohort with Type 1 diabetes diagnosed 1987-1992.  This regional incident cohort has extensive data on diabetes care and characteristics from diagnosis. Presently we are doing clinical examinations for eye and kidney complications.  We also have a  longitudinal plasma bank. Project 3 (National health measurement Study) : Dr. Palta directs the Biostatistics Core to evaluate and compare measures of health related quality of life in population based and patient samples. She is developing and evaluating analytic methods for novel ways to understand and compare the different measures. Project 4 (Misspecification in Longitudinal Models): Statistical methods. Honors: Elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association (2004) President, Caucus for Women in Statistics (2002) Current Affiliations/Associations: Community Influences on Health Behavior (CIHB) study section- NIH DRG (2004-) Committee on Women in Statistics, American Statistical Association (2005-) Biological Sciences Division Tenure Committee, University of Wisconsin (2004-2005) Population Health Program Steering Committee (1996-present) Population Health Program Curriculum Committee (1996- present) FDA panel  on ophthalmic medical devices (consultant, 2004-) Books Palta M, Quantitative Methods in Population Health, Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics, 2003. Benichou J, Palta M,  Rates, Risks, measures of Association and Impact. Chapter I.2., Handbook of Epidemiology, Ahrens, W., Pigeot, I. (Eds.). Springer Verlag, (July) 2004. Representative Publications: (also see http://www.biostat.wisc.edu/faculty/palta.html) Huang G-H, Palta M, Allen C, LeCaire T, D'Alessio D. Self-rated health in young persons with type 1 diabetes in relation to risk factors from a longitudinal study. American Journal of Epidemiology, 159: 364-372, 2004. Li L, Palta M, Shao J. A measurement error model with a Poisson distributed surrogate. Statistics in Medicine, Volume 23, Number 16. 2004. Palta M, Seplaki C. Causes, problems and benefits of different between and within effects in the analysis of clustered data. Health Services and Outcomes Research Methodology, 3: 177-193, 2002  (appeared in 2003). Wang J, Shao J, and Palta M.  Testing model fit in longitudinal data analysis against alternatives with omitted covariates, Statistics in Medicine, 21: 729-744, 2002.. Park S, Palta, M, Shao, J. and Shen, L. Bias adjustment in analyzing longitudinal data with informative missingness,  Statistics in Medicine, 21: 277-91, 2002.. Mares-Perlman JA, Fisher AI, Klein R, Palta M, Block G, Millen AE, Wright JD. Lutein and zeaxanthin in the diet and serum and their relation to age-related maculopathy in the Third National Health and Examination Survey. Am J Epidemiol, 153: 424-432, 2001. Allen C, LeCaire T, Palta M, Daniels K, Meredith M, D'Alessio D. Risk factors for frequent and severe hypoglycemia in type 1 diabetes. Diabetes Care, 24: 1878-81, 2001. Palta M, Sadek-Badawi M, Sheehy M, Albanese A, Weinstein MR, McGuinness G. Respiratory symptoms in a multicenter VLBW cohort at age 8 year. Am J Epidemiol, 154: 521-9, 2001. Qu RP, Shao J, Palta M. Efficiency comparison of methods for estimation and prediction in regression models, Statistics and Probability Letters, 55: 125-135, 2001. Palta M, Sadek M, Evans M, Weinstein MR, McGuinness G. Functional assessment of a multicenter VLBW cohort at age 5 years. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 154: 23-30, 2000.  Mahoney JE, Palta M, Johnson J, Jalaluddin M; Gray S, Park S, Sager M. Temporal association between hospitalization and rate of falls after discharge. Arch Int Med, 160: 2788-2795, 2000.  Peppard PE, Young T, Palta M, Skatrud J. Association between sleep disordered breathing and hypertension. New England J. of Medicine, 342: 1378-84, 2000.  Peppard PE, Young T, Palta M, Dempsey J, Skatrud J. Longitudinal study of moderate weight change and progression of sleep disordered breathing. JAMA, 284: 3015-3021, 2000.  Shen L, Palta M, Shao J, Park S. Consistent estimation of marginal regression parameters for longitudinal data with covariate measurement error when replicates are not available.  Proceedings of the Biometrics Section of  the American Statistical Association, 2000. Palta M, Lin C-Y. Latent variables, measurement error and methods for analyzing longitudinal binary and ordinal data. Statistics in Medicine, 18: 385-96, 1999.  Tao H, Palta M, Yandell BS, Newton MA. An estimation method for the semiparametric mixed effects model. Biometrics,  55: 191-202, 1999.  Park S, Palta M, Shen L, Shao J. Comparison of applications of compliance indicators in a longitudinal study of individuals with type I diabetes. Proceedings of the Biometrics Section of  the American Statistical Association,pp 285-291, 1999.  Shen L, Palta M, Shao J, Park S. Model misspecification and different between- and within-cluster covariate effects in the analysis of correlated data. Proceedings of the Biometrics Section of  the American Statistical Association, pp 219-224 1999.  Hansen K, Mahoney J, Palta M. Risk factors for lack of recovery of ADL independence after hospital discharge. J Am Geriatr Soc, 47:360-65, 1999.  Palta M, Sadek M, Lim T-S, McGuinness G. Association of tocolytic therapy with antenatal steroid administration, infant and child outcomes. Am J Perinatology, 15, 87-92, 1998.  Palta M, Sadek M, Barnet JH, Evans M, Weinstein MR, McGuinness G, Peters ME, Gabbert D, Fryback D, Farrell P. Evaluation of criteria for chronic lung disease in very low birth weight infants.  J Pediatr, 132: 57-63, 1998.  Evans M, Palta M, Sadek M, Weinstein M. Associations between family history of asthma, bronchopulmonary dysplasia and childhood asthma in very low birth weight children.  American J Epidemiology, 148: 460-6, 1998.  Finn L, Young T, Palta M, Fryback DG. Sleep-disordered breathing and self-reported general health status in the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort study. Sleep, 21: 587-92, 1998.  Chao W, Palta M, Young T. Effect of omitted confounders on the analysis of correlated binary data. Biometrics, 53: 678-89, 1997.  Palta M, LeCaire T, Daniels K, Shen G, Allen C, D'Alessio D. Risk factors for rehospitalization in a cohort with Type I diabetes.  American J Epidemiology, 146:627-36, 1997.  Palta M. Measurement error in epidemiology- suggestions for broadening the perspective. Statistics in Epidemiology Report, Newsletter of the Epidemiology Section of the American Statistical Association 3: 1, 7-9, 1997.  Palta M, Lin C-Y, Chao W. Effect of confounding and other misspecification in models for longitudinal data. In: Modeling Longitudinal and Spatially Correlated Data. Lecture Notes in Statistics Series, 122.  Proceeding of the Nantucket Conference on Longitudinal and Correlated Data. Springer-Verlag 1997, pages 77-88.  Courses Taught: PHS 900: Quantitative Methods in Population Health II Contact Information: Department of  Population Health Sciences 610 Walnut St. Madison, WI 53726 Phone: (608) 263-4029 FAX: (608) 263-2820 Email: mpalta@wisc.edu Updated 6/20/08