Melvin  Livingston

I am a methodologist with expertise in the the application of quasi-experimental design principals to the evaluation for both community interventions and state policies. I have particular expertise in time series modeling, mixed effects modeling, econometric methods, and power analysis. As part of my work involving community trials, I have been the statistician on the long term follow-up study of a school based cluster randomized trial in low-income communities with a focus on explaining the etiology of risky alcohol, drug, and sexual behaviors. Additionally, I was the statistician for a longitudinal study examining the etiology of alcohol use among racially diverse and economically disadvantaged urban youth, and co-investigator for a NIAAA- and NIDA-funded trial to prevent alcohol use and alcohol-related problems among youth living in high-risk, low-income communities within the Cherokee Nation. Prevention work at the community level led me to an interest in the impact of state and federal scoioeconomic policies on health outcomes. I am a Co-Investigator of a 50-state, 30-year study of effects of state-level economic and education policies on a diverse set of public health outcomes, explicitly examining differential effects across disadvantaged subgroups of the population.

My current research interests center around the application of quasi-experimental design and econometric methods to the evaluation of the health effects of state and federal policy.