Evaluating the Congruity between Stated and Revealed Preferences: Applied Example in Bipolar Disorder
Incorporating patient preferences into regulatory decisions recognizes the unique perspectives and needs of patients, aiming to improve patient-centered healthcare outcomes and overall patient satisfaction. Patient preferences provide insights on benefit-risk tradeoffs, which can be valuable information in the context of innovative drug development. Patient-centered care is gaining prominence in the drug development pipeline and approaches to incorporate patient preferences in regulatory decision-making continues to evolve. The ultimate goal is ensuring that healthcare decisions better reflect the needs and desires of those they impact the most – patients themselves. This research seeks to evaluate the congruence between stated and revealed preferences in a benefit-risk decision-making context. We build upon an existing stated preference instrument, developed specifically to evaluate benefit-risk trade-offs in caregivers’ decisions to use an atypical antipsychotic for their child or adolescent in their care.
This research seeks to evaluate the congruity between patients’ and caregivers’ stated and revealed preferences for antipsychotic treatment of bipolar disorders. To achieve the overarching objective of this research, we propose the following specific aims:
1. Elicit patients’ and caregivers’ perspectives on benefit-risk trade-offs for antipsychotic treatment of bipolar disorders using stated and revealed preference methods.
2. Identify latent subgroups of patients based on heterogeneity of preferences elicited.
3. Compare stated preferences with revealed preferences in the overall population and within unique subgroups.
The study is funded through a University of Maryland Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (M-CERSI)
Research Scientist Collaboration Program with the Food and Drug Administration.
COVID-related Health Disparities in Vulnerable Youth
The overarching premise for this proposal is the emerging evidence of disruption in mental health services immediately following the mandatory lockdown and stay at home orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The problem is that we do not know whether the coronavirus pandemic widened existing disparities, whether measures to re-open society may have slowed the widening of disparities, nor what the impact on mental health service use disparities will be three years after the start of the pandemic.
The purpose of the current project is to
1. Determine Identify the sociodemographic, clinical diagnoses, and treatment characteristics that predict which youth do and do not engage in telepsychiatry services after the start of the public health emergency.
2. Characterize regional variation in the use of video versus telephonic (i.e., non-video) modalities for telepsychiatry services.
Psychotropic Monitoring & Oversight of Youth in the Maryland Foster Care System
This work is being conducted in collaboration with the Maryland State Department of Human Services (DHS). The central aim of this work is to assist the DHS with the oversight and evaluation of psychotropic medication use and appropriate mental health services for youth in foster care. This work is made possible through a cross-agency collaboration with the Maryland Department of Health and the University of Maryland Baltimore County Hilltop Institute.
The study is funded by a contract with DHS.
Telehealth Policies in Primary Care Practice and the Impact on Disparities in Access to Psychotropic Management in Rural, Minoritized Pediatric Populations
This project aims to evaluate remote patient monitoring of psychotropic management in primary care settings and identify gaps in evidence that warrant further research.
The study has three key components:
1. Literature Review: We conducted a thorough review of the literature on telehealth services for the management of medication treatment across the age span.
2. Inferential Assessment: Information from the identified literature is summarized to identify the key medication management activities conducted via telehealth.
3. Dissemination: At the conclusion of this work, we will generate a framework of telehealth medication management components to better understand the integration of telehealth in clinical practice settings.
Improving Quality and Outcomes for Low Income Children with Depression in the US
As a co-Investigator on this study funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, this study uses Medicaid administrative data from all 50 US states to evaluate the quality of depression treatment for youth with Depression.