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AHRQ Research Studies
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Research Studies is a compilation of published research articles funded by AHRQ or authored by AHRQ researchers.
Results
1 to 25 of 94 Research Studies DisplayedAnhang Price R, Quigley DD DD, Hargraves JL
A systematic review of strategies to enhance response rates and representativeness of patient experience surveys.
The purpose of this systematic review study was to explore evidence on survey administration strategies to increase response rates and representativeness of patient surveys. The researchers examined 40 peer-reviewed randomized experiments of administration protocols for patient experience surveys. The study found that when compared to mail-only or telephone-only administration of surveys, mail administration with telephone follow-up provides a median response rate benefit of 13%. Researchers also discovered that while surveys administered only by web usually result in lower response rates than those administered by mail or telephone, the limited evidence for a web-mail-telephone process suggests a potential response rate benefit over a mail-telephone process. Monetary incentives are related with substantial improvements in response rates. The study concluded that mixed-mode survey administration results in increased patient survey response rates than a single mode.
AHRQ-funded; HS025920.
Citation: Anhang Price R, Quigley DD DD, Hargraves JL .
A systematic review of strategies to enhance response rates and representativeness of patient experience surveys.
Med Care 2022 Dec;60(12):910-18. doi: 10.1097/mlr.0000000000001784..
Keywords: Patient Experience, Research Methodologies, Health Services Research (HSR)
Saldanha IJ, Adam GP, Bañez LL
AHRQ Author: Bañez LL
Inclusion of nonrandomized studies of interventions in systematic reviews of interventions: updated guidance from the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality Effective Health Care program.
A guidance workgroup comprised systematic review experts utilized an informal consensus generation method to develop guidelines to inform decisions regarding the inclusion of nonrandomized studies of interventions (NRSIs) in systematic reviews (SRs) of the effects of interventions. The study found that varying topics may require varying decisions regarding NRSI inclusion. The researchers identified key considerations to inform the decisions; from refinement of topics through to development of protocols. During the scoping and refinement of topics, considerations were associated with the clinical decisional dilemma, adequacy of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to address the crucial questions, risk of bias in NRSIs, and the degree to which NRSIs are likely to complement RCTs. When NRSIs are included, during SR team formation, familiarity with topic-specific data sources and advanced analytic methods for NRSIs should be considered. During protocol development, the decision regarding NRSI inclusion or exclusion should be justified, and potential implications explained. When NRSIs are included, the protocol should describe the processes for synthesizing evidence from RCTs and NRSIs and determining the overall strength of evidence. CONCLUSION: We identified specific considerations for decisions regarding NRSI inclusion in SRs and highlight the importance of flexibility and transparency.
AHRQ-authored; AHRQ-funded; 290-2017-00003 -C; 75Q80120D00001- 75Q8120D00003; 75Q80120D00005 - 75Q8120D00009.
Citation: Saldanha IJ, Adam GP, Bañez LL .
Inclusion of nonrandomized studies of interventions in systematic reviews of interventions: updated guidance from the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality Effective Health Care program.
J Clin Epidemiol 2022 Dec; 152:300-06. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.08.015..
Keywords: Evidence-Based Practice, Research Methodologies, Health Services Research (HSR)
Burgermaster M, Rodriguez VA
Psychosocial-behavioral phenotyping: a novel precision health approach to modeling behavioral, psychological, and social determinants of health using machine learning.
The purpose of this study was to demonstrate a novel application of machine learning for psychosocial-behavioral phenotyping, which includes the identification of subgroups with similar combinations of psychosocial characteristics. The researchers conducted a secondary analysis of psychosocial and behavioral data from a community cohort (n = 5,883). The study found 20 psychosocial-behavioral phenotypes. Each phenotype suggested different contextual considerations for intervention design. The researchers concluded that psychosocial-behavioral phenotypes can identify possible targets of intervention.
AHRQ-funded; HS019853.
Citation: Burgermaster M, Rodriguez VA .
Psychosocial-behavioral phenotyping: a novel precision health approach to modeling behavioral, psychological, and social determinants of health using machine learning.
Ann Behav Med 2022 Nov 18;56(12):1258-71. doi: 10.1093/abm/kaac012..
Keywords: Social Determinants of Health, Health Information Technology (HIT), Research Methodologies
Morrow EL, Duff MC, Mayberry LS
Mediators, moderators, and covariates: matching analysis approach for improved precision in cognitive-communication rehabilitation research.
This tutorial’s goals were to (a) increase awareness and use of mediation and moderation models in cognitive-communication rehabilitation research by describing options, benefits, and attainable analytic approaches for researchers with limited resources and sample sizes and (b) describe how these findings may be interpreted for clinicians consuming research to inform clinical care. The authors discuss the potential of mediation and moderation analyses to reduce the research-to-practice gap and describe how researchers may begin to implement these models, even in smaller sample sizes. They describe how researchers may begin to implement these models, even in smaller sample sizes. They believe it is critical to harness new approaches to advance clinical-translational research results for complex, heterogeneous groups with cognitive-communication disorders.
AHRQ-funded; HS026122.
Citation: Morrow EL, Duff MC, Mayberry LS .
Mediators, moderators, and covariates: matching analysis approach for improved precision in cognitive-communication rehabilitation research.
J Speech Lang Hear Res 2022 Nov 17;65(11):4159-71. doi: 10.1044/2022_jslhr-21-00551..
Keywords: Communication, Rehabilitation, Research Methodologies
Holtrop JS, Davis MM
Primary care research is hard to do during COVID-19: challenges and solutions.
This study examined challenges in conducting primary care research during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors used their experience on over 15 individual projects during the pandemic. They identified 3 key challenges to conducting primary care research: (1) practice delivery trickle-down effects, (2) limited/changing resources and procedures for research, and (3) a generally tense milieu in US society during the pandemic. They presented strategies, informed by a set of questions, to help researchers decide how to address these challenges observed during our studies. They encouraged normalization and self-compassion; and encouraged researchers and funders to embrace pragmatic and adaptive research designs as the circumstances with COVID-19 evolve over time.
AHRQ-funded; HS027080.
Citation: Holtrop JS, Davis MM .
Primary care research is hard to do during COVID-19: challenges and solutions.
Ann Fam Med 2022 Nov-Dec; 20(6):568-72. doi: 10.1370/afm.2889..
Keywords: COVID-19, Primary Care, Health Services Research (HSR), Research Methodologies
Tourani R, Ma S, Usher M
Robust methods for quantifying the effect of a continuous exposure from observational data.
The purpose of this study was to introduce new clinical medicine methods for estimating the effect of intervening on a continuous exposure that are more expansive and robust towards violations of the existing sets of strict assumptions. The researchers based their methods on the critical observation that changes of exposure in the clinical setting are typically achieved gradually, so effect estimates must be "locally" robust in narrower exposure ranges. The study compared the researcher’s methods with a number of existing methods on three simulated studies with escalating complexity. The researchers also applied the methods to data from 14,000 sepsis patients to estimate the effect of antibiotic administration latency on prolonged hospital stay. The researchers concluded that the proposed methods resulted in good performance in all simulation studies.
AHRQ-funded; HS024532.
Citation: Tourani R, Ma S, Usher M .
Robust methods for quantifying the effect of a continuous exposure from observational data.
IEEE J Biomed Health Inform 2022 Nov;26(11):5728-37. doi: 10.1109/jbhi.2022.3201752..
Keywords: Research Methodologies
Russell LB, Huang Q, Lin Y
The electronic health record as the primary data source in a pragmatic trial: a case study.
Electronic health records are a series of overlapping and legacy systems that require time and expertise to use efficiently. Commonly measured patient characteristics are relatively easy to locate for most trial enrollees but less common characteristics are not. Acquiring essential supplementary data - in this trial, state data on hospital admission - can be a lengthy and difficult process.
AHRQ-funded; HS026372.
Citation: Russell LB, Huang Q, Lin Y .
The electronic health record as the primary data source in a pragmatic trial: a case study.
Med Decis Making 2022 Nov;42(8):975-84. doi: 10.1177/0272989x211069980..
Keywords: Electronic Health Records (EHRs), Health Information Technology (HIT), Research Methodologies
Adam GP, Pappas D, Papageorgiou H
A novel tool that allows interactive screening of PubMed citations showed promise for the semi-automation of identification of biomedical literature.
This study looked at a novel tool named Pythia that allows interactive screening of PubMed citations to provide semi-automation of identification of biomedical literature for use with systematic reviews. Pythia incorporates a set of natural-language questions with machine-learning algorithms to rank all PubMed citations based on relevance, returning the 100 top-ranked citations. Of the seven systematic reviews conducted, the number of abstracts reviewed per relevant abstract number needed to read was lower than in the manually screened project in four reviews, higher in two, and had mixed results in one. The reviews that had greater overall sensitivity retrieved more relevant citations in early batches, but retrieval was generally unaffected by other aspects, such as study design, study size, and specific key question.
AHRQ-funded; HS027247.
Citation: Adam GP, Pappas D, Papageorgiou H .
A novel tool that allows interactive screening of PubMed citations showed promise for the semi-automation of identification of biomedical literature.
J Clin Epidemiol 2022 Oct;150:63-71. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.06.007..
Keywords: Research Methodologies, Evidence-Based Practice
Kalenderian E, Lee JH, Obadan-Udoh EM
Development of an inventory of dental harms: methods and rationale.
The authors sought to standardize the language of dental adverse events (AEs). Using a multimodal approach, they developed a broad list of dental AEs in which the AEs were classed into 12 categories, with hard tissue injury being noted frequently. Pain was the unexpected AE that was consistently identified with every modality used.
AHRQ-funded; HS024406.
Citation: Kalenderian E, Lee JH, Obadan-Udoh EM .
Development of an inventory of dental harms: methods and rationale.
J Patient Saf 2022 Sep 1;18(6):559-64. doi: 10.1097/pts.0000000000001033..
Keywords: Dental and Oral Health, Patient Safety, Research Methodologies
Oatis CA, Konnyu KJ, Franklin PD
Generating consistent longitudinal real-world data to support research: lessons from physical therapists.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether clinicians can generate consistent and standardized real-world data (RWD) to enhance data quality in the course of routine patient care. The researchers collaborated with PT clinicians and experts to generate a web-based comprehensive system to quantify the total dose of PT interventions with type of modality, quantity, intensity, and progressions over time. The system was designed to be implemented in outpatient PT clinics capable of residing alongside or within a clinic’s existing EHR. The study goal was to collect routine clinical data in a format useable by the general population of outpatient physical therapists treating patients post Total Knee Replacement (TKR) and in a structure that would allow easy quantification and analysis across patients, therapists, and sites. Uniform and efficient documentation of real-world PT practice following TKR is essential for the necessary comparative effectiveness research demanded by the currently unexplained practice variation. Over a period of 2 years, physical therapists and PT assistants located in three US states entered data for a total of 161 patients post TKR with 2615 patient visits. No technical problems with the data capture system were reported, and physical therapists noted that data entry was efficient and simple. The researchers concluded that the results demonstrate that routine PT interventions can be captured thoroughly in an efficient, systematic, and consistent manner across real-world therapists and sites.
AHRQ-funded; 75Q80120D00001.
Citation: Oatis CA, Konnyu KJ, Franklin PD .
Generating consistent longitudinal real-world data to support research: lessons from physical therapists.
ACR Open Rheumatol 2022 Sep;4(9):771-74. doi: 10.1002/acr2.11465..
Keywords: Research Methodologies, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Evidence-Based Practice
Golmakani MK, Hubbard RA, Miglioretti DL
Nonhomogeneous Markov chain for estimating the cumulative risk of multiple false positive screening tests.
This study addressed the general challenge of estimating the cumulative risk of multiple false positive test results. The authors proposed a nonhomogeneous multistate model to describe the screening process including competing events and developed alternative approaches for estimating the cumulative risk of multiple false positive results using this multistate model based on existing estimators for the cumulative risk of a single false positive. The multistate model was based on existing estimators for the cumulative risk of a single false positive. They compared the performance of the newly proposed models through simulation studies and illustrated model performance using data on screening mammography from the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium. They found that in the context of screening mammography that the cumulative risk of multiple false positive results is high. For a high-risk individual, the cumulative probability of at least two false positive mammography results after 10 rounds of annual screening is 40.4.
AHRQ-funded; HS018366.
Citation: Golmakani MK, Hubbard RA, Miglioretti DL .
Nonhomogeneous Markov chain for estimating the cumulative risk of multiple false positive screening tests.
Biometrics 2022 Sep;78(3):1244-56. doi: 10.1111/biom.13484..
Keywords: Research Methodologies, Screening, Imaging, Cancer: Breast Cancer, Cancer
Young JC, Dasgupta N, Stürmer T
Considerations for observational study design: comparing the evidence of opioid use between electronic health records and insurance claims.
The authors linked electronic health record (EHR) data from a large academic health system to Medicare insurance claims for patients undergoing surgery. When characterizing opioid exposure, they found substantial discrepancies between EHR medication orders and prescription claims data. In all time periods assessed, most patients' use was reflected only in the EHR, or only in the claims, but not both.
AHRQ-funded; HS000032.
Citation: Young JC, Dasgupta N, Stürmer T .
Considerations for observational study design: comparing the evidence of opioid use between electronic health records and insurance claims.
Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf 2022 Aug;31(8):913-20. doi: 10.1002/pds.5452..
Keywords: Research Methodologies, Electronic Health Records (EHRs), Health Information Technology (HIT)
Kumamaru H, Jalbert JJ, Nguyen LL
Utility of automated data-adaptive propensity score method for confounding by indication in comparative effectiveness study in real world Medicare and registry data.
The authors assessed the utility of an automated data-adaptive analytic approach for confounding adjustment when both claims and clinical registry data are available. Using a comparative study example of carotid artery stenting vs. carotid endarterectomy with strong confounding by indication, they found that the automated data-adaptive propensity score performed better than the investigator-specified propensity score in general, but both claims and registry data were needed to adequately control for bias.
AHRQ-funded; 29020050016I.
Citation: Kumamaru H, Jalbert JJ, Nguyen LL .
Utility of automated data-adaptive propensity score method for confounding by indication in comparative effectiveness study in real world Medicare and registry data.
PLoS One 2022 Aug;17(8):e0272975. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272975..
Keywords: Registries, Comparative Effectiveness, Research Methodologies, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Evidence-Based Practice
Djulbegovic B, Ahmed MM, Hozo I
High quality (certainty) evidence changes less often than low-quality evidence, but the magnitude of effect size does not systematically differ between studies with low versus high-quality evidence.
The study researchers state that assumptions and general beliefs exist about certainty of evidence (CoE) and its impact on estimates of treatment effects, however empirical assessment of those assumptions and beliefs is lacking. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the differences between low CoE (low-quality evidence) and high CoE (high-quality evidence) in precision of estimating treatment effects. The researchers reviewed the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews from January 2016 through May 2021 for pairs of original and updated reviews for change in CoE assessments based on the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) method. Differences in effect sizes between the original reviews and the updated reviews were assessed as a function of change in CoE. The researchers concluded that low CoE changes more frequently than high CoE, but the effect size in low CoE studies did not differ from the effect size in high CoE studies. The researchers state that the effect size finding is an indicator of the need to further assess and improve the critical appraisal methods currently utilized in evidence-based medicine.
AHRQ-funded; HS024917.
Citation: Djulbegovic B, Ahmed MM, Hozo I .
High quality (certainty) evidence changes less often than low-quality evidence, but the magnitude of effect size does not systematically differ between studies with low versus high-quality evidence.
J Eval Clin Pract 2022 Jun;28(3):353-62. doi: 10.1111/jep.13657..
Keywords: Research Methodologies, Evidence-Based Practice
Nguyen AM, Cleland CM, Dickinson LM
Considerations before selecting a stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial design for a practice improvement study.
This study’s objective was to identify the advantages and challenges of the stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial (SW-CRT) design for large-scale intervention implementations in primary care settings. The authors interviewed grantees from the EvidenceNOW: Advancing Heart Health initiative, which included a large collection of SW-CRTs. A total of 17 key informants were given qualitative interviews. All interviewees reported that SW-CRT can be an effective study design. The advantages of SW-CRT include incentivized recruitment, staggered resource allocation, and statistical power. The challenges included time-sensitive recruitment, retention, randomization requirements and practice preferences, achieving treatment schedule fidelity, intensive data collection, the Hawthorne effect, and temporal trends.
AHRQ-funded; HS023922.
Citation: Nguyen AM, Cleland CM, Dickinson LM .
Considerations before selecting a stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial design for a practice improvement study.
Ann Fam Med 2022 May-Jun;20(3):255-61. doi: 10.1370/afm.2810..
Keywords: Research Methodologies
Huppert J
AHRQ Author: Huppert J
Adolescents with vulvar ulcers: COVID-19 disease, COVID-19 vaccines, and the value of case reports.
The author indicates that there are too few cases reporting aphthosis after COVID disease or COVID-19 vaccination to infer a statistical association, but that case reports are a valuable source of rich details about conditions that are difficult to study with more rigorous designs and can be synthesized to help guide medical care. She recommends that it is time for a high-quality systematic review of vulvar aphthosis in order for clinicians to incorporate the existing evidence into decision-making and best care for patients.
AHRQ-authored.
Citation: Huppert J .
Adolescents with vulvar ulcers: COVID-19 disease, COVID-19 vaccines, and the value of case reports.
J Pediatr Adolesc Gynecol 2022 Apr;35(2):109-11. doi: 10.1016/j.jpag.2022.01.006..
Keywords: Children/Adolescents, COVID-19, Vaccination, Research Methodologies
Reeves SL, Dombkowski KJ, Madden B
Considerations when aggregating data to measure performance across levels of the health care system.
Investigators examined attribution when measuring quality at varying levels of the health care system. Using Medicaid claims, they concluded that, when applying attribution models, it was essential to consider the potential to induce health disparities. Further, differential attribution may have unintentional consequences that deepen health disparities, particularly when considering incentive programs for health plans to improve the quality of care.
AHRQ-funded; HS025292; HS025299.
Citation: Reeves SL, Dombkowski KJ, Madden B .
Considerations when aggregating data to measure performance across levels of the health care system.
Acad Pediatr 2022 Apr;22(3s):S119-s24. doi: 10.1016/j.acap.2021.11.013..
Keywords: Sickle Cell Disease, Research Methodologies, Provider Performance
Ellis RP, Hsu HE, Siracuse JJ
Development and assessment of a new framework for disease surveillance, prediction, and risk adjustment: the diagnostic items classification system.
The purpose of this study was to develop an updated classification framework for predicting diverse health care payment, quality, and performance outcomes, based on the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM). All ICD-10-CM diagnoses were mapped into 3 types of diagnostic items (DXIs): main effect DXIs that specify diseases; modifiers, such as timing and acuity; and scaled variables, such as body mass index, gestational age, and birth weight. The primary outcome was annual health care spending top-coded at $250 000, and the researchers predicted 14 different outcomes, including: hospital days and admissions; emergency department visits; enrollee out-of-pocket spending; spending for 6 types of services; and overall and plan-paid health care spending. The researchers created 3223 DXIs: 2435 main effects, 772 modifiers, and 16 scaled items. The study found that relative to HHS-HCCs, the use of DXIs reduced underpayment for enrollees with rare diagnoses by 83%. The researchers concluded that in this study, for all spending and utilization outcomes considered, the new DXI classification system demonstrated improved predictions over current diagnostic classification systems.
AHRQ-funded; HS026485
Citation: Ellis RP, Hsu HE, Siracuse JJ .
Development and assessment of a new framework for disease surveillance, prediction, and risk adjustment: the diagnostic items classification system.
JAMA Health Forum 2022 Mar;3(3):e220276. doi: 10.1001/jamahealthforum.2022.0276..
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Keywords: Risk, Research Methodologies
Kissler K, Breman RB, Carlson N
Innovations in prospective perinatal research as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This paper provides a review of perinatal research adaptations which took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although in-person research activities ceased during the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting disease called COVID-19, the authors’ team of university scientists across the United States utilized adapted methods to allow prospective perinatal research to continue. Novel approaches included using new and underutilized techniques for distance research such as: online recruitment, enrollment, and consent; data collection via videoconferencing; self-collection of biological samples; and new applications of smart phones and wearable vital signs measurement. The researchers found that these methods may improve recruitment success and the quality of the experience for the participants, as well as provide improved access to historically vulnerable populations, such as low-income, rural, and racially diverse pregnant and postpartum individuals and communities. The researchers concluded that the implementation of these research strategies resulted in broader, more inclusive, and diverse perinatal research access, and many of the strategies will continue to be used and refined long after the pandemic.
AHRQ-funded; HS028085.
Citation: Kissler K, Breman RB, Carlson N .
Innovations in prospective perinatal research as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
J Midwifery Womens Health 2022 Mar;67(2):264-69. doi: 10.1111/jmwh.13329..
Keywords: COVID-19, Research Methodologies
Wang Y, Lin L, Thompson CG
A penalization approach to random-effects meta-analysis.
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are principal tools to synthesize evidence from multiple independent sources in many research fields. The assessment of heterogeneity among collected studies is a critical step when performing a meta-analysis, given its influence on model selection and conclusions about treatment effects. In this paper, the investigators compared the existing and proposed methods with simulated data and several case studies to illustrate the benefits of the penalization methods.
AHRQ-funded; HS024743.
Citation: Wang Y, Lin L, Thompson CG .
A penalization approach to random-effects meta-analysis.
Stat Med 2022 Feb;41(3):500-16. doi: 10.1002/sim.9261..
Keywords: Research Methodologies
O'Malley AJ, Landon BE, Zaborski LA
Weak correlations in health services research: weak relationships or common error?
This study examined whether the correlation between a provider's effect on one population of patients and the same provider's effect on another population is underestimated if the effects for each population are estimated separately as opposed to being jointly modeled as random effects, and characterized how the impact of the estimation procedure varies with sample size. The authors used Medicare claims and enrollment data on emergency department (ED) visits, including patient characteristics, the patient’s hospitalization status, and identification of the doctor responsible for the decision to hospitalize the patient. The simulation analysis demonstrated that the joint modeling approach is generally close to unbiased, whereas the stratified approach can be severely biased in small samples. Correlations included 0.98 for female and male patients and only 0.38 using stratified estimation. Correlations for White and non-White patients are 0.99 and 0.28, and for Medicaid dual-eligible and non-dual-eligible patients 0.99 and 0.31, respectively.
AHRQ-funded; HS025408.
Citation: O'Malley AJ, Landon BE, Zaborski LA .
Weak correlations in health services research: weak relationships or common error?
Health Serv Res 2022 Feb;57(1):182-91. doi: 10.1111/1475-6773.13882..
Keywords: Health Services Research (HSR), Research Methodologies
Silva GC, Gutman R
Multiple imputation procedures for estimating causal effects with multiple treatments with application to the comparison of healthcare providers.
Choosing between multiple healthcare providers requires us to simultaneously compare the expected outcomes under each provider. This comparison is complex because the composition of patients treated by each provider may differ. Similar issues arise when simultaneously comparing the adverse effects of interventions using non-randomized data. To simultaneously estimate the effects of multiple providers/interventions the investigators proposed procedures that explicitly imputed the set of potential outcomes for each subject.
AHRQ-funded; HS026830.
Citation: Silva GC, Gutman R .
Multiple imputation procedures for estimating causal effects with multiple treatments with application to the comparison of healthcare providers.
Stat Med 2022 Jan 15;41(1):208-26. correct. doi: 10.1002/sim.9231..
Keywords: Research Methodologies
Norton WE, Zwarenstein M, Czajkowski S
AHRQ Author: Kato E
Building internal capacity in pragmatic trials: a workshop for program scientists at the US National Cancer Institute.
This article describes a workshop put together by the authors for program scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to help them become better researchers and stewards of research funds. The workshop got good reviews from the attendees and many felt it will help them develop funding opportunities and advise grantees.
AHRQ-authored.
Citation: Norton WE, Zwarenstein M, Czajkowski S .
Building internal capacity in pragmatic trials: a workshop for program scientists at the US National Cancer Institute.
Trials 2019 Dec 27;20(1):779. doi: 10.1186/s13063-019-3934-y..
Keywords: Research Methodologies, Health Services Research (HSR), Cancer, Healthcare Delivery
Kuhn J, Sheldrick RC, Broder-Fingert S
Simulation and minimization: technical advances for factorial experiments designed to optimize clinical interventions.
This study examined the best way to maximize the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) which is designed to maximize the impact of clinical healthcare interventions. Computer simulations were run to empirically test five subject allocation procedures. Simple and stratified randomization performed the poorest; while maximum tolerated imbalance, minimal sufficient balance, and minimization were more successful in achieving balanced sample sizes and equivalence across a large number of covariates. Minimization was recommended for further research studies.
AHRQ-funded; 2T32HS022242.
Citation: Kuhn J, Sheldrick RC, Broder-Fingert S .
Simulation and minimization: technical advances for factorial experiments designed to optimize clinical interventions.
BMC Med Res Methodol 2019 Dec 16;19(1):239. doi: 10.1186/s12874-019-0883-9..
Keywords: Research Methodologies
Predmore Z, Hatef E, Weiner JP
Integrating social and behavioral determinants of health into population health analytics: a conceptual framework and suggested road map.
There is growing recognition that social and behavioral risk factors impact population health outcomes. Interventions that target these risk factors can improve health outcomes. This study presents a review of existing literature and proposes a conceptual framework for the integration of social and behavioral data into population health analytics platforms. The authors describe several use cases for these platforms at the patient, health system, and community levels, and align these use cases with the different types of prevention identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
AHRQ-funded; HS000029.
Citation: Predmore Z, Hatef E, Weiner JP .
Integrating social and behavioral determinants of health into population health analytics: a conceptual framework and suggested road map.
Popul Health Manag 2019 Dec;22(6):488-94. doi: 10.1089/pop.2018.0151..
Keywords: Social Determinants of Health, Risk, Research Methodologies