Health Data Guru to Speak March 25

02/26/2014 

Marya Zilberberg, a scholar on the interpretation of health statistics, knows how easy it is for public health professionals and the news media especially to mess up the data.

“People frequently misinterpret health-related statistics and information,” said Zilberberg, who plans to discuss the pitfalls of data evaluation and the accuracy of media reports of such data on Tuesday, March 25, at SUNY Cortland.

“The presentation will be useful to those interested in learning how to better evaluate health information,” said Zilberberg, the author of Between the Lines: Finding the Truth in Medical Literature and an adjunct associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health and Health Sciences.

Marya Zilberberg

Zilberberg, who also is the founder, president and CEO of EviMed Research Group, will present “Scientific Evidence: Is There More than Meets the Eye?” at 7 p.m. in Sperry Center, Room 204.

Her talk is the seventh annual Charles N. Poskanzer Lecture sponsored by the College’s Health Department. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Charles N. Poskanzer

The event is supported by the Charles N. Poskanzer Fund, an endowment named in honor of the late SUNY Distinguished Service Professor emeritus who taught in the College’s Health Department for 40 years. The fund was established through the Cortland College Foundation as an endowment to support an annual, public lecture offered by the College’s Health Department in honor of its former colleague. Since Poskanzer’s death in 2010, the fund has continued to grow through donations made in his memory. The Poskanzer Lecture allows the Health Department to bring national leaders in public and community health to campus to meet with students and faculty and to deliver a public lecture on a current public health issue.

For more information, contact Judith Johns, assistant professor of health, at 607-753-5614 or Alan Sofalvi, assistant professor of health, at 607-753-2980.