Helena Chmura Kraemer
Academic Appointments
- Emeritus Faculty, Acad Council, Psychiatry & Behavioral Science
- Member, Stanford Cancer Institute
Key Documents
Contact Information
- Academic Offices
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Professional Overview
Honors and Awards
- Member, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences (2003)
- Member, International College of Geriatric Psychiatry (2002)
- Franklin Ebaugh Prize, Stanford University (2001)
- Harvard Prize in Psychiatric Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Harvard University (2001)
- Member, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (1994)
- Fellow, American Statistical Association (1987)
Scientific Focus
Current Research Interests
I am interested in the methodology pertinent to dealing with research problems where biological and behavioral interests meet. These interests have been applied not only in psychiatric research, but in those areas of Cardiology, Pediatrics and other fields of medicine in which behavioral research is becoming ever more salient.
Specifically, I am interested in the methods of assessing the quality of measurement (evaluation of medical tests, reliability, validity), in methods of detecting the sources of errors and correcting them, and in the impacts of such errors both on clinical decision making and on research.
This interest is fundamentally related to my interest in design issues for both valid, powerful and effective research projects. I have been involved in the full range of medical research projects, from randomized clinical trials, to epidemiological studies, to preventions studies and even to basic research projects. From this has come research into the issues of statistical power, and strategies to improve power by exercising design considerations rather than increasing sample size.
Finally I am involved as much as possible with efforts to train medical researchers and clinicians to recognize the problems with inference from research project results.
Publications
- Determining gene moderation of environmental risk factors for a mental disorder: a "perfect storm" of methodological problems. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2012; (3): 185-94
- Measuring grief and depression in seriously ill outpatients using the Palliative Grief Depression Scale. J Palliat Med. 2012; (12): 1350-5
- Decrease in depression symptoms is associated with longer survival in patients with metastatic breast cancer: a secondary analysis. J Clin Oncol. 2011; (4): 413-20
- How to assess the clinical impact of treatments on patients, rather than the statistical impact of treatments on measures. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res. 2011; (2): 63-72
- A randomized controlled trial of culturally tailored dance and reducing screen time to prevent weight gain in low-income African American girls: Stanford GEMS. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2010; (11): 995-1004
- Assessment of factors influencing preservation of dignity at life's end: creation and the cross-cultural validation of the preservation of dignity card-sort tool. J Palliat Med. 2010; (5): 495-500
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