
Melanie M. Wall
Professor of Biostatistics (in Psychiatry)
Division of Biostatistics in the Department of Psychiatry
and
Department of Biostatistics in Mailman School of Public Health
My biostatistical expertise includes latent variable modeling (e.g. factor analysis, item response theory, latent class models, structural equation modeling), spatial data modeling (e.g. disease mapping), and longitudinal data analysis including the class of longitudinal models commonly called growth curve mixture models . I have extensive experience working with epidemiological observational data related to behavioral psycho-social public and mental health. I received a Ph.D. (1998) from the Department of
Statistics at Iowa State University, and a B.S. (1993) in mathematics from Truman State University. Before moving to Columbia University in July 2010, I was on
faculty in Biostatistics in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota for twelve years.
NEW COURSE P8158 Latent Variable and Structural Equation Modeling for Health Sciences (Columbia University Dept of Biostatistics - Tuesdays 9:30-11:50 - Spring 2012) - Syllabus
COURSE NOTES from previous offerings at the University of Minnesota:
My full CV is here and below are selected research papers...
- Presentations about additive interactions Presentation on testing for additive versus multiplicative interactions with dichotomous outcomes, and a presentation Are you looking for the right interactions? by Sharon Schwartz developing the causal theory behind why causal interactions are best represented by additivity.
- Papers examining associations between marijuana use and state medical marijuana laws
- Cerda M, Wall MM, Keyes K, Galea S, Hasin D. (2011) Medical marijuana laws in 50 states: investigating the relationship between state legalization of medical marijuana and marijuana use, abuse and dependence. Accepted and to appear in Drug and Alcohol Dependence
- Wall MM, Poh E, Cerda M, Keyes K, Galea S, Hasin D. (2011) Adolescent marijuana use from 2002 to 2008: higher in states with medical marijuana laws, cause still unclear. Annals of Epidemiology, 21:714-716. NDSUH data and SAS programs used for analysis
- Programs for Item Response Theory Modeling
- Papers on latent variable models including nonlinear structural equation models
- Wall, M.M., Guo, J., Amemiya, Y. Mixture factor analysis for approximating a non-normally distributed continuous latent factor with continuous and dichotomous observed variables. To appear in Multivariate Behavioral Research Mplus program for Mixture Factor Analysis
- Wall, M.M. and Li, Ran (2009) Multiple indicator hidden Markov model with an
application to medical utilization data. Statistics in Medicine, 28(2): 293-310.
- Guo, J. Wall, M.M., and Amemiya, Y. (2006) "Latent class regression on latent factors", Biostatistis, 7, 1, pp. 145-163.
- Wall, M.M. and Li, Ruifeng (2003)
"A Comparison of Multiple Regression to Two
Latent Variable Techniques for Estimation and Prediction", Statistics in Medicine, 22, 3671-3685. SAS programs for performing analysis in this paper here
- Nonlinear SEM Papers below and Nonlinear SEM Programs HERE
- Wall, M.M. and Amemiya, Y, (2000) "Estimation for polynomial
structural equation models". JASA, 95, 929-940.
- Wall, M.M. and Amemiya, Y, (2001) "Generalized appended
product indicator procedure for nonlinear structural equation analysis". Journal of Educational and Behavioral
Statistics, 26, 1-29.
- Wall, M.M. and Amemiya, Y, (2003) "A method of
moments technique for fitting interaction effects in structural
equation models", British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 56, 47-64.
- Wall M.M. and Amemiya, Y. (2007)
"A review of nonlinear factor analysis and nonlinear structural equation modeling"
In Factor Analysis at 100: Historical Developments and Future Directions, eds. Robert Cudeck and Robert C.
MacCallum, Chapter 16 pp 337-362, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Wall M.M. and Amemiya, Y. (2007) "Nonlinear structural equation modeling as a statistical method"
In Handbook of Latent Variable and related Models, ed Sik-Yum Lee, Chapter 15, 321-344, Elsevier, The Netherlands.
- Wall MM (2009) Maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimation for nonlinear structural equation models, In the
Handbook of Quantitative Methods in Psychology eds Roger Millsap and Albert Maydeu-Olivares, Chapter 22, 540-567, Sage.
- Papers on spatial data modelling
- Wang, F., and Wall, M.M. (2003)
"Generalized Common Spatial Factor Model" Biostatistics 4(4), 569-582.
- Wang, F. and Wall, M.M.
"Modelling multivariate data with a common spatial factor"
Research Report No. 2001-008, Division of Biostatistics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
- Wang, F., and Wall, M.M. (2003)
"Incorporating Parameter Uncertainty into Prediction Intervals for
Spatial Data Modeled via a Parametric Variogram", JABES, 8, Vol. 3., 1-14.
- Banerjee, S., Wall, M.M., and Carlin, B.P. (2003)
"Frailty Modeling for Spatially Correlated Survival Data, with
Application to Infant Mortality in Minnesota", Biostatistics, 4, 123-143.
- Wall, M.M. (2004)
"A close look at the spatial correlation structure implied by
the CAR and SAR models" Journal of Statsitical Planning and Inference Vol 121, 2, 311-324.
- Zhao, Y. and Wall, M.M. (2004) ``Investigating the use of the
variogram for lattice data''
Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 13(3)
, 1-20.
- Liu X, Wall MM, Hodges JS (2005)
"Generalized spatial structural equation modeling" Biostatistics, 6: 539-557.
- Wall MM and Liu X (2009) ``Spatial Latent Class Analysis Model for Spatially Distributed Multivariate Binary Data",
Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, 53, 3057-3069.
- Wall MM (2011). Spatial structural equation modeling with an application to U.S. behavioral risk factor surveillance survey data, to appear In the Handbook of Structural Equation Modeling, ed Rick Hoyle, Guilford Press.
- Other statistical methodology papers
- Wall, M.M., Boen, J. and Tweedie, R. L. (2001) "An effective CI
for the mean with samples of size 1 and 2",
The American Statistician, 55, No. 2, 102-105.
- Pan, W. and Wall, M.M. (2002) "Small-Sample Adjustments in Using
the Sandwich Variance Estimator in Generalized Estimating
Equations" Statistics in Medicine, 21, No. 10,
1429-1441.
- Wall, M.M. (2004) "Adjusting SIDS rates by seasonality in births
in Minnesota", Statistics in Medicine, 23(13): 2037-2048.
- Wall, M.M., Dai, Y., Eberly, L.E. (2005) "GEE Estimation of a
Mis-specified Time-varying Covariate in Poisson Regression with Many
Observations" Statistics in Medicine, 24:925-939.
- Friedman L, Wall MM. (2005) "Graphical views of suppression and multicollinearity in multiple linear regression", The American Statistician, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 127 - 136.
Splus program for producing graphs in this paper here prepared by Lynn Friedman.
Melanie M. Wall
email: mmwall@columbia.edu
phone: (212) 543-5448 fax: (212) 543-5599
Mailing address:
1051 Riverside Drive
Unit 48
New York, NY 10032
Physical address (and FedEx):
Mailman School of Public Health
722 West 168th Street - R211
New York, NY 10032