Associate Director for Prevention
Director, Office of Disease Prevention
National Institutes of Health
About the Webinar
Group-based interventions may be evaluated in a parallel group- or cluster-randomized trial, in an individually randomized group-treatment trial, or in a stepped-wedge group- or cluster-randomized trial. These designs have additional design and analytic challenges beyond those presented when an individual-based intervention is evaluated using a traditional randomized clinical trial. This webinar reviews those challenges as well as current recommendations for design and analysis of these trials. In addition, the webinar reviews updates to the Research Methods Resources website which currently focuses on parallel group- or cluster-randomized trials and individually randomized group-treatment trials. In particular, we demonstrate the new sample size calculator for individually randomized group-treatment trials, which was added to the website in mid-April 2021. We also preview a new section on stepped-wedge group- or cluster-randomized trials which will be coming to the website later this year.
About David M. Murray
David M. Murray, Ph.D., is the Associate Director for Prevention and Director of the Office of Disease Prevention (ODP) at the NIH. He has spent his career evaluating interventions designed to improve public health. He has focused on the design and analysis of group- or cluster-randomized trials in which groups are randomized to conditions and members of those groups are observed to assess the effect of an intervention. Dr. Murray wrote the first textbook on that material, published by Oxford University Press in 1998. He has worked on many of these trials, collaborating with colleagues around the country. He also has conducted research to develop and test new methods for their design and analysis.
Dr. Murray served as the first chair of the Community-Level Health Promotion study section, which reviews many of the group-randomized trials submitted to the NIH. After 35 years at University of Minnesota, the University of Memphis, and the Ohio State University, Dr. Murray joined the NIH in September 2012. He is responsible for promoting and coordinating prevention research among and between NIH Institutes and Centers and other public and private entities. The ODP’s FY 2019–2023 strategic plan identifies six priorities related to portfolio analysis, evidence gaps, prevention science methods, trans-NIH research initiatives, tobacco regulatory science and prevention, and communications.