YSPH Biostatistics Seminar: “Treatment effect heterogeneity and cluster randomized trials: design considerations and tools”

NOTE: BIS 525 students are required to attend in person. Others are invited to attend in person, but may also attend via Zoom.

SPEAKER: Mary Ryan Baumann, PhD, Assistant Professor of Population Health Sciences and Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

TITLE: “Treatment effect heterogeneity and cluster randomized trials: design considerations and tools”

ABSTRACT: Cluster randomized trials (CRTs) are a well-established class of designs for evaluating large-scale, community-based interventions. Of recent interest is how CRTs can be explicitly designed to examine a priori questions of treatment effect heterogeneity, how these design recommendations differ from those trials focused on overall, population-averaged treatment effects, and how these trial objectives can be balanced. In this talk, we will review recent developments in clustered trial design for treatment effect heterogeneity, explore trial planning themes common across multiple types of clustered trials -- including single and multi-period parallel designs, crossover designs, and stepped-wedge designs -- and discuss how considerations for covariate information differ from the usual outcome. We will also discuss several available tools to aid investigators in designing their trials, and introduce the CRT HTE Calculator, a free open-source web application to aid in the design of a variety of clustered trials.

YSPH values inclusion and access for all participants. If you have questions about accessibility or would like to request an accommodation, please contact Charmila Fernandes at Charmila.fernandes@yale.edu. We will try to provide accommodations requested by October 30, 2025.