Emil Coman, Ph.D.

Emil Coman, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist
860-278-2044 ext. 257

emil.coman@icrweb.org

Emil Coman, Ph.D. holds a degree in marketing communication. He is a causal modeler with extensive experience in emotional communication and risk behavior, as well as research methodology, particularly in preventive intervention design and evaluation. He has completed a number of analytical projects at ICR involving structural (or simultaneous) equation modeling (SEM) analyses of the measurement and causal structures, particularly measure development and validity assessment of multi-item (both effect and causal indicator) measures, including invariance testing across groups and also across time (e.g. change in measurement structure in the treatment group due to intervention). He has expertise in complex issues of measurement (scales vs. indices, dichotomous indicators, recalibration), mixed designs (clustering and multilevel), longitudinal designs, models with feedback loops, social network analysis, and in post-hoc modeling like simple and complex mediation analyses (e.g. multiple mediators, moderated mediation), mixture analysis (unobserved groupings), testing of implicit modeling assumptions, and statistical power. He is a Co-PI of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to develop a (formative) quality performance measure of Local Health Departments’ services during health emergencies. He is an active member of American Evaluation Association and an occasional blogger.

Select Publications:
Cromley, E., Schensul, J., Singh, S., Berg, M., & Coman, E. (2010). Spatial Dimensions of Research on Alcohol and Sexual Risk: A Case Example from a Mumbai Study. AIDS and Behavior, 14(S1), S104-S112.

Robison, J., Schensul, J., Coman, E., Diefenbach, G., Radda, K., Gaztambide, S., et al. (2009). Mental health in senior housing: Racial/ethnic patterns and correlates of major depressive disorder. Aging & Mental Health, 13(5), 659-673 - Individual contribution: statistical tests (descriptives, logistic regression models) and writing up results. Paper of the month, Dec. 2009, www.cehdl.uconn.edu

Diefenbach, G.J., Disch, W.B., Robison, J. T., Baez, E., & Coman, E. (2009). Anxious depression among Puerto Rican and African-American older adults. Aging and Mental Health, 13(1), 118 – 126, - Confirmatory factor analyses, descriptives, chi-quare tests, ANCOVAs.

Berg, M., Coman, E., & Schensul, J., Youth Action Research for Prevention: A Multi-level Intervention Designed to Increase Efficacy and Empowerment Among Urban Youth, American Journal of Community Psychology: 43, (3), 345-359.

Schensul, J. J., Kim Radda, K., Coman, E., & Vazquez, V. (2009). Multi-Level Intervention to Prevent Influenza Infections in Older Low Income and Minority Adults, American Journal of Community Psychology: 43, (3), 313-329.

Coman, E., (1999). Public Relations in the US: A Function of Marketing or Management? Romanian Review of Communication and Public Relations, 1, 1999

Select Presentations:
Coman E. (2011). Identifying Peer-Network Clusters in a Community Sample with Limited Relational Data: Using Mixture Multilevel CFA to Recover Potential Groups of Peer Influence on Attitudes Toward Female Condom. Presented at the First (2011) Modern Modeling Methods (M3) Conference. [Presentation Slides, PDF]

Abbott M., Coman E. (2010). Evaluating potential impact of intervention in community settings when no comparison data is available: mixture latent growth modeling for exploring differential change in female condom use. Presented at the 2010 American Evaluation Association convention. [Presentation Slides, PPT]

Coman E., Schensul J.(2010). Comparing comparisons: contrasting ethnic-specific factor coefficient weighted depression with the invariant unit-weight measure and comparing Puerto-Rican and African-American elderly on depression development processes. Presented at the 2010 American Evaluation Association convention. [poster]

Coman E., Berg. M. (2010). Evaluating post-intervention effects by comparing alternative structural equation modeling: decision-trees based on formal model comparisons. Presented at the 2010 American Evaluation Association convention. [Presentation Slides, PPT]

Recapturing Time in Evaluation of Causal Relations: Illustration of Latent Longitudinal and Nonrecursive SEM Models for Simultaneous Data. Presented at the American Evaluation Association convention, Nov. 14, 2009, Orlando FL. [Presentation Slides, PPT]

Coman, E.; Radda, Kim; Vasquez, Elsie; Schensul, Jay. Addressing Disparities and Promoting Advocacy: Two Decades of Community-Based Research Among Older Urban Adults. Presented at the New England Regional Minority Health Conference Presenters, October 14-16, 2009 in Providence, RI.

Coman, E. & Schensul J. (2008). Illustration of health disparities tests using moderation, mediated moderation, and moderated mediation analyses. Five research projects dealing with risk behavior among African Americans and Latino urban community-based samples. Poster presented at NIH Health Disparities Summit, Dec. 16-18, 2008.

Coman, E. & Schensul J. (2008). Comparing comparisons: Impact of wrongly using group invariant measures on assessing differences in symptoms and predictors of depression between Puerto Rican and African American elderly living in public housing. Poster presented at NIH Health Disparities Summit, Dec. 16-18, 2008.

Burkholder, G. J., Coman, E., & Berg, M. (2006). Characteristics of influential members of adolescent social networks. Poster presented at 114th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA, August 10-13.

Coman E., & Buck, R. (2006). Addiction to media: how habit and excessive wanting take control of Internet and TV use. Poster presented at International Society for Research on Emotions Conference, Atlanta, August 6-10, 2006. [see below]

Berg, Marlene, Coman, Emil (2005). Investigation of the factor structure of a global peer influence measure based on social network variables. Poster presented at the Applications of Social Network Analysis to the Prevention of Substance Use & Delinquency Conference, Penn State, Nov. 2005.

Do US mass media really massify our society? What is mass in mass media? Paper accepted/almost presented for the Sixth Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association, New York, 2005.

Emotional education and gender specificity: A meta-analysis of emotional expressiveness. Paper presented at the Eastern Communication Association (ECA) convention, 2004.

Some implications of mental imagery on the epistemic value of scientific research. Paper presented at the Western States Communication Association (WSCA) 2004 Convention, Albuquerque, NM, & at the 54th Annual Conference of the International Comm. (ICA) Association, New Orleans. PDF here

Integrating the between-subjects and within-subjects data: pointing towards a metric of social distance. Paper presented at WCSA-2004.

The causal relationship between mood and communication satisfaction. Paper presented at WCSA-2004.

(co-author) Assessment of Emotional Uses and Gratifications: Development of EGRATS Scale. Paper presented at the 2003 NCA conference.

The impact of imagination on computer mediated telepresence. Paper presented at the 2003 ICA conference.

Searching online: Impact of accessibility of information on Internet users. Paper Presented at the “Rhetoric and Democracy in the Age of the Internet” conference, Hartford, CT, 2001.

Ph.D. Dissertation project: Dependency on media: Development and validation of SalCo-the compulsion and salience based media affinity scale. [Abstract & citation]