SMU 2nd in the 2010 SAS Data Mining Shootout

The task was to determine the economic benefit of reducing the Body Mass Indices (BMIs) of a selected number of individuals by 10% and to determine the cost savings that would accrue to the Federal Government's Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Team analyzed the economic benefit of reducing body mass indices by 10%

SMU, November 1, 2010

A team of Ph.D. students in the Industrial Engineering Department at Oklahoma State University edged out the SMU Data Mining team to win first place in the national 2010 SAS Data Mining Shootout competition.

The order of finish of the competition was announced on October 25 at the SAS Data Mining Conference held at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.

SMU The SMU team made up of Subhojit Das, Greg Johnson and Jacob Williamson finished second in the competition. Das and Johnson are third year students in the Economics Ph.D. program and Williamson is a second year Applied M.A. student in the Economics Department. The faculty sponsor was Economics Professor Tom Fomby.

Proposed solutions involved analyzing the medical, demographic, and behavioral data of 50,788 individuals, some of whom had diabetes. The task was to determine the economic benefit of reducing the Body Mass Indices (BMIs) of a selected number of individuals by 10% and to determine the cost savings that would accrue to the Federal Government's Medicare and Medicaid programs, as well as to the economy as a whole, from the implementation of the proposed BMI reduction program.

Sixty applications were received from Colleges and Universities across the nation with 17 of the 60 qualifying for final submission. The completion was judged on the applicability and accuracy of the proposed solution algorithm and the quality of the submitted report detailing the results produced by the solution algorithm.