Roles
Professor
Co-Director, Center for HIV and Research on Mental Health
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Biography
Daniel J. Feaster, PhD, is a tenured professor of biostatistics in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He has more than 30 years of experience in the design, implementation, and analysis of substance use and HIV-related studies.
Dr. Feaster has served as a statistician on more than 30 federally funded research projects, including center grants, R01 awards, cooperative agreements, and multisite clinical trials. His areas of expertise include multilevel (hierarchical linear) modeling, structural equation modeling, longitudinal data analysis, and methods for handling missing data.
He currently serves as a multiple principal investigator and biostatistician for the Florida Node of the National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network, now in its 24th year. In addition, he is co-director of the recently renewed HIV and Mental Health Center (CHARM).
Dr. Feaster’s recent methodological research focuses on the use of finite mixture and machine-learning methods to examine heterogeneity of treatment effects. -
Education & Training
Education
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Honors & Awards
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Teaching Interests
Longitudinal and Multilevel Analysis -
Research Interests
Much of my work has focused on the HIV prevention and HIV treatment cascades. A large trial I co-lead focused on the role of risk-reduction counseling associated with HIV rapid testing. Counseling has been linked with HIV testing since near the inception of antibody testing, but there had been no recent assessment of its effectiveness in the era of rapid testing. These trials showed that counseling in conjunction with HIV rapid testing has little impact on 1) sexual risk behaviors of patients in drug treatment or 2) cumulative 6-month incidence of STIs for clients of STD clinics. As a result of this research, the CDC has recently dropped its recommendation to include brief risk reduction counseling at the time of testing. I have also focused on family-based intervention for HIV outcomes of an adult family member. One trial a family-based intervention intervention for medication adherence in women and another for male prisoners living with HIV in California. These interventions have moderate impact on women in substance abuse recovery and no evidence of impact with male prisoners. Male prisoners had a long history of incarceration and many of them had few family left that would work with them.One of my areas of specialization in biostatistics is in longitudinal and multi-level modeling. I have published multiple articles highlighting their use and interpretation in my family intervention applications. Finally, my experience in multi-site clinical trials has led to numerous publications on appropriate methods for their planning and analysis. In addition, I have been actively pursuing the use of machine learning approaches to predict individual-level treatment effects with the eventual goal of guiding treatment assignment to the modality that is most likely to have a positive impact on the individual. -
Publications
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Professional Activities
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