Methods for determining how personalized treatments improve health outcomes.

What is it about?

When faced with the decision to undergo a treatment, it is common for patients and clinicians to think about the potential health outcomes of undergoing the treatment versus not undergoing the treatment which may include both direct and indirect impacts of the treatment on health outcomes. In this paper we show how to quantify the direct and indirect treatment effects for individual patients, providing effect estimates with interpretations that coincide with how patients think about whether the treatment resulted in their health outcome and why.

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Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Using the potential outcomes framework, we developed statistical methodology for the estimation of direct and indirect treatment effects using data collected from an individual. These effects help researchers and clinicians understand why treatments are (not) effective in specific patients. The developed methods may help clinicians in the personalization of treatment strategies.