Chair's Welcome Message for 2021

The TSHS Section offers many resources and events to help you in your teaching! Check these out:

Datasets: The TSHS Resources Portal (https://www.causeweb.org/tshs/) provides open-access peer-reviewed health sciences-related datasets specifically intended for teaching. There are currently thirteen (13) datasets available. Each dataset is available in several formats, and is accompanied by an introduction, a data dictionary, and the citation for the original study publication. If you need datasets for teaching, check out the Portal. And if you have datasets that you would be able to share, please consider submitting them to the Portal for review. Contact our Portal co-director, Carol Bigelow, at cbigelow@schoolph.umass.edu.

Webinars: The TSHS section sponsors webinars roughly quarterly. The most recent webinar on March 30, 2021 was a panel discussion on “Teaching Statistics Online during the Pandemic – Sharing Experiences from Multiple Continents”. The webinars are recorded and freely available at our section’s website (https://community.amstat.org/tshs/home). If you have an idea for a future webinar, we’d love to hear it. Contact our webinar coordinator, Tom Braun, at tombraun@umich.edu.

Blog: The TSHS section blog (https://tshsblog.wixsite.com/main/blog-1) contains a wealth of ideas about teaching. Check out the book reviews, the #ReadyResources, or the webinar recaps, to name a few. If you have ideas about teaching that you would like to share with others, consider writing a blog post! Contact our blog editor, John Doucette, at john.doucette@mssm.edu.

JSM 2021: Our program committee has been working hard to arrange excellent sessions for JSM 2021 which will be held virtually again this year. There will be an invited panel discussion on “Assessing PhD readiness in biostatistics”. There will also be a panel discussion on “Engaging Minority and Underserved Populations in Health Science: Education and Training for Careers in Statistics and Data Science”, a session on “Teaching anti-racism in statistical training: progress and needs”, and a session on “Teaching Statistics in the Health Sciences: Innovations, Updates, and Best Practices”, among others. There will also be roundtable discussions on “Developing Pathways for Entrance into Biostatistics Programs” and on “Best Approaches to Teaching Statistics Online”. Since travel time or cost will not be an obstacle, we hope you will join us in August: https://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2021/ .