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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: AJPH.2007.127563v1 98/8/1354    most recent Submit a response Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Nair, V. Articles by Zhang, A. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Nair, V. Articles by Zhang, A. Related Collections Cancer Other Chronic Disease Surveys Women's Health

Vijay Nair, PhD, Victor Strecher, PhD, Angela Fagerlin, PhD, Peter Ubel, MD, Kenneth Resnicow, PhD, Susan Murphy, PhD, Roderick Little, PhD, Bibhas Chakraborty, MA and Aijun Zhang, MA

Vijay Nair, Susan Murphy, Bibhas Chakraborty, and Aijun Zhang are with the Department of Statistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Victor Strecher and Kenneth Resnicow are with the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Angela Fagerlin and Peter Ubel are with the Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine and the Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the VA Health Services Research and Development Center for Practice Management and Outcomes Research, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Ann Arbor. Roderick Little is with the Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Vijay Nair, PhD, Department of Statistics, University of Michigan, 439 West Hall, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (e-mail: vnn{at}umich.edu).

ABSTRACT

Health behavior intervention studies have focused primarily on comparing new programs and existing programs via randomized controlled trials. However, numbers of possible components (factors) are increasing dramatically as a result of developments in science and technology (e.g., Web-based surveys). These changes dictate the need for alternative methods that can screen and quickly identify a large set of potentially important treatment components.

We have developed and implemented a multiphase experimentation strategy for accomplishing this goal. We describe the screening phase of this strategy and the use of fractional factorial designs (FFDs) in studying several components economically. We then use 2 ongoing behavioral intervention projects to illustrate the usefulness of FFDs. FFDs should be supplemented with follow-up experiments in the refining phase so any critical assumptions about interactions can be verified.