"Research on the Psychosocial Impacts of Genomic Information: Introduction to Randomized Designs"
Short course co-sponsored by the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and the Center for Research on Ethical, Legal & Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic & Behavioral Genetics
Among various approaches to patient-oriented research, experimental designs in which participants are randomly assigned to different conditions are often considered the most rigorous. For example, in clinical trials, random assignment of participants to receive alternative treatments is crucial to evaluate treatment efficacy while protecting against false inferences due to extraneous factors (e.g., other differences in traits that influence survival between treated and untreated persons). Experimental designs are also extremely powerful for study of the potential ethical, legal, and social impacts (ELSI) of genetic and genomic information. This short course will provide background about the importance of such designs for ELSI-related research, the types of questions they can address, and the various ways in which they can be implemented.
Course faculty:
Matthew S. Lebowitz, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry), Columbia University
Jo C. Phelan, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Lawrence H. Yang, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Global Public Health, New York University
Ruth Ottman, Ph.D.
Professor of Epidemiology (in Neurology and the Sergievsky Center), and Deputy Director, Center for Research on Ethical, Legal & Social Implications of Psychiatric, Neurologic & Behavioral Genetics, Columbia University
