David Heller

David Heller is a research statistician at RTI with extensive experience on drug misuse and drug-related surveys. Mr. Heller has led data analysis tasks on surveys for the past 16 years and has specific expertise in data management, survey measurement errors, imputation and weighting of survey data, and SAS and SUDAAN programming.

He leads the statistical tasks for the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS), which is focused on the analysis of drug seizure and drug toxicology data. For the NFLIS project, Mr. Heller oversees and performs data management, completes estimations, and uses statistical process control to identify significant changes in reporting levels. Additionally, he trains and mentors staff in ongoing statistical analyses of drug-related data.

Previously, Mr. Heller has served in lead roles in survey analysis for the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and the Analytic Services Center/National Analytic Center, both funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). He supervised and reviewed analyses for policy-focused short reports and data briefs on substance use and mental illness. Mr. Heller also led the creation of more detailed methodological studies—such as declining interview and screening response rates—and special topic reports, including cannabis initiation, opioid misuse among adolescents, and substance use and mental illness among veterans.