An Integrative Approach to Control Group Creation for Prevention Research

 描述（由申请人提供）：该 SBIR 项目的目标是开发一种创建算法生成的控制组的方法。这些将由具有两个特征的合成案例组成：(1) 预先测试与任何预防治疗组可能出现的相似性；(2) 随着时间的推移变化的模式，密切模仿酒精和药物使用发展的正常过程。酒精和毒品预防领域已经非常成熟，并且拥有丰富的数据资源可以用于这一目的。值得注意的是，许多学校和社区功效研究都在随机对照试验中采用了对照组。其他病因学和流行病学研究也收集了类似的数据。鉴于可供分析的大量数据，现在可以对青少年中酗酒和吸毒的发生进行建模。我们建议从以前的研究中收集数据并开发可用于预测酒精和药物使用发作的统计模型。将开发一种算法，创建综合控制案例，以匹配治疗组的人口统计数据和预测试中介变量分数，然后估计未来的药物使用情况。预计这种方法有几个好处。酒精和毒品预防研究人员和从业人员将能够使用这种方法来测试传播干预措施的有效性，并快速评估新的和替代预防干预措施的潜力。具体来说，该方法将提供一种方法来评估在随机化无法发生时传播的酒精和​​毒品预防计划的有效性。这种方法还可以减少招募、受试者保留、现场数据收集和预测试不等价性方面的挑战，从而使评估新的和改编的项目变得更容易，这些挑战在教室、学校和社区分配条件时经常发生。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this SBIR project is to develop a method for creating algorithmically generated control groups. These will be composed of synthetic cases that have two characteristics: (1) pretest similarity to whatever prevention treatment group may present itself and (2) patterns of change over time that closely mimic the normal course of alcohol and drug use development. The field of alcohol and drug prevention is one that has significantly matured and has rich data resources that can be employed to this end. Notably, numerous school and community efficacy studies have employed control groups in randomized control trials. Additional etiological and epidemiological studies have collected similar data. Given the large amount of data available for analysis, it is now possible to model the onset of alcohol and drug use among adolescents. We propose to gather data from previous studies and develop statistical models that can be used to predict the onset of alcohol and drug use. An algorithm will be developed that will create integrative control cases to match to a treatment group's demographics and pretest mediating variable scores and then estimate future drug use. Several benefits of this method are anticipated. Alcohol and drug prevention researchers and practitioners will be able to use this approach to test the effectiveness of disseminated interventions and to quickly evaluate the potential of new and alternative prevention interventions. Specifically, this method will provide a means to evaluate the effectiveness of alcohol and drug prevention programs that are disseminated when randomization cannot occur. This method will also make evaluating new and adapted programs easier by reducing the challenges of recruitment, subject retention, and onsite data collection and pretest non-equivalence that often occur when l classrooms, schools and communities are assigned to condition.