The Long-Term Excellence Award honors individuals who have made significant lifetime contributions to the development of statistical methods or innovative statistical applications for health care policy or health services research and who have served the community through mentoring and service that advance the aims of the Section. The award is given every two years. Previous winners include Constantine Gatsonis, Professor and founding Chair of Biostatistics at Brown.

Professor Cappelleri was honored for his many statistical and psychometric research innovations including the development and psychometric validation of key patient-reported outcomes for patients with many different conditions including erectile dysfunction, diabetes, schizophrenia, cancer, fibromyalgia, inflammatory and autoimmune disease, and addiction to cigarette smoking. His work has translated medical findings into health care policy by facilitating the approval of new medications and their placement on formularies for reimbursement leading to improved longevity and quality of life for millions of patients worldwide. In addition, Professor Cappelleri was cited for his extensive mentorship, teaching and advocacy roles for junior colleagues.

Joe has received many honors including being named an ASA Fellow for contributions to the development and psychometric evaluation of patient-reported outcomes; for influential contributions to the methodology and applications of meta-analysis; for outstanding contributions to regression-discontinuity (cutoff-based) designs; and for significant service to the statistical and medical professions. He also received the Craig A. Saxton Clinical Development Excellence Award, Pfizer’s highest and most prestigious accolade, with a citation that read: "The most prolific author in Pfizer history puts the patient’s voice in development, and personally and professionally ‘pays it forward’ by sharing his expertise and encouragement with colleagues.” He also has been honored with the International Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Avedis Donabedian Outcomes Research Lifetime Achievement Award. Joe is the first industry statistician to receive the ISPOR and HPSS lifetime achievement awards. He is the author of several books on patient-reported outcomes, health economics and outcomes research and drug development.

Professor Cappelleri has visited the Biostatistics department each year for many years to talk with graduate students about comparative effectiveness research, patient-centered outcomes research and career opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry and has made himself available for career mentoring to many of our students. He has also served as a guest lecturer on in several graduate level courses in the department