Medical decision making encompasses a variety of research disciplines and employs normative theory and descriptive theory. Normative theory, or “decision analysis”, is concerned with identifying the most rational decision. Descriptive theory, or “judgment and decision making psychology”, is concerned with describing the decisions that people actually make.

Faculty

(Joyce) Chung-Chou H. Chang, PhD

Dr. Chang has a wide range of interests in theoretical and applied statistics, including time-to-event (survival) and longitudinal data analysis, missing data (competing risks and informative dropout), causal effect modeling (propensity score and marginal structural modeling), design and analysis of observational studies and clinical trials, design and analysis of studies of biomarkers in risk prediction, dynamic prediction, and machine learning techniques.

Janel Hanmer, MD, PhD

Dr. Hanmer's primary research focus is on health-related quality of life measurement, particularly health utility measurement. Dr. Hanmer's recent work has been focused on developing a new health utility score for the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS). This work combines item response theory and econometric theory. The resulting PROMIS-Preference (PROPr) score is now being evaluated for population health monitoring and longitudinal validity.

Kevin L. Kraemer, MD, MSc

Dr. Kraemer’s research interests are in the delivery and implementation of patient-centered strategies for the detection and early intervention of unhealthy alcohol and drug use, the application of cost-effectiveness methodology to alcohol and drug detection and treatment programs, and the comparative effectiveness of alcohol and drug addiction treatment on HIV outcomes and quality of HIV care.

Tamar Krishnamurti, PhD

Dr. Krishnamurti’s research interests include risk perception and communication, medical decision making, mHealth, and the design of effective communications, decision aids, and interventions for both domestic and international populations. She is particularly interested in research that focuses on vulnerable and high-risk social groups.

Kenneth J. Smith, MD, MS

Dr. Smith’s research centers on the cost-effectiveness of common medical interventions, most notably on pneumococcal, influenza, and varicella vaccination and on the impact of racial disparities in vaccination rates. He has published in many other areas, including pelvic inflammatory disease, influenza management strategies, diabetes prevention and treatment, VA formulary decisions, anticoagulation and thrombotic disorder management, and hospital-physician communication.