Dr. Philip Westgate is the Interim Chair and Professor in the Department of Biostatistics.
His methodological areas of interest include cluster, group, or community randomized trials, longitudinal studies, and clustered data in general. Furthermore, he has applied interests in a variety of areas, including pediatrics and the substance use area.
He is the lead biostatistician for the University of Kentucky site of the HEALing Communities Study (UM1DA049406), and serves as co-investigator on multiple NIH grants. Furthermore, he is part of the University of Kentucky’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design (BERD) Core, and serves on the CCTS data safety monitoring board.
Dr. Westgate’s methodological research focuses on longitudinal studies, cluster, group, or community randomized trials, and clustered data in general. His work has focused on the validity of inference and the power of statistical methods that can be used for the analysis of data in these settings. He also works on study design and the appropriate application of statistical methods. His work is motivated by past and current research studies.
Dr. Westgate is a co-investigator on multiple clinical trials and cluster randomized trials, and is therefore a member on interdisciplinary research teams. For instance, he is the lead biostatistician for the University of Kentucky site of the HEALing Communities Study (UM1DA049406), which is a multi-site cluster randomized trial aimed at reducing opioid-related overdose deaths in communities across four different states. The first citation listed below is work he led on statistical modeling that will be utilized for this study.
As another example, he has worked on a clinical trial (R01DA043519) involving neonates with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS). Working on NAS-related studies with this research team, he has led the development of a shortened tool for the scoring of NAS severity, and he continues to work with the research team to study potential improvements for NAS severity scoring.
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Philip Westgate, Ph.D., Chair of and Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Public Health (CPH), has been honored as a 2024-2025 University Research Professor.
The University of Kentucky College of Public Health is undergoing a review by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) for re-accreditation. Part of this process includes the invitation to provide third-party comments. Anyone, including students, alumni, employers, community partners, etc., is allowed to share relevant information about the college directly with CEPH. If you would like to provide input to CEPH to inform their review, send your comments to submissions@ceph.org by May 4th, 2025.
