Public Health Unpacked: Improving Equity of Public Health Interventions for Complex Behaviors via Intensive Longitudinal Data Collection and Innovative Analysis
September 16, 2026
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Improving Equity of Public Health Interventions for Complex Behaviors via Intensive Longitudinal Data Collection and Innovative Analysis
Speaker: Bethany Bray, PhD, Assistant Dean for Research, UIC School of Public Health
Description: Contemporary studies in prevention science often include intensive longitudinal data (ILD) such as daily diaries, ecological momentary assessments, and passively collected data from ambulatory assessment devices (e.g., physical activity, sleep). ILD hold promise to optimize intervention effectiveness and improve outcome equity across vulnerable subgroups by identifying critical moments of risk and protection. ILD can uncover unique mediators and moderators of key public health outcomes, such as substance use, particularly when combined with cross-sectional and more traditionally collected longitudinal data (e.g., panel, cohort). Broadly, this presentation will discuss how the collection and analysis of ILD can enhance public health research. Specifically, this presentation will focus on young adult substance use as a complex, multidimensional behavior and will address the following: (1) motivation for using ILD in public health research generally and substance use research specifically; (2) data collection and analysis challenges of ILD; (3) multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA) as an innovative analysis approach for modeling complex, multidimensional behaviors measured at many timepoints; and (4) what we have learned about young adult substance use using ILD and MLCA.
This event is offered in-person in SPHPI Room 160 or virtual via Zoom. For in-person attendees, lunch will be available starting at 11:45am in the SPHPI Wellness Space (Room 157). Please RSVP in advance and indicate whether you will attend in-person or virtually.
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Public Health Unpacked is a weekly lecture series showcasing the insights, vision and research of public health leaders from the UIC School of Public Health and beyond.
Date posted
Sep 1, 2026
Date updated
Sep 2, 2026
Speakers
