Non-normal growth mixture modeling

Bengt Muthén, Ph.D.
UCLA

ABSTRACT:
After a brief overview of the many uses of finite mixture modeling, applications of new mixture modeling developments are discussed.  One major development goes beyond the conventional mixture of normal distributions to allow mixtures with flexible non-normal distributions.  This has interesting applications to cluster analysis, factor analysis, SEM, and growth modeling.  The talk focuses on applications of Growth Mixture Modeling for continuous outcomes that are skewed.  Examples are drawn from national longitudinal surveys of BMI as well as twin studies.  Extensions of this modeling to the joint study of survival and non-ignorable dropout are also discussed.