[Skip to Content]

C124 - Missing Data in Microrandomized Trials: Challenges and Opportunities

Time: 05:00 PM - 05:50 PM
Topics: Methods and Measurement, Substance Misuse
Poster Number: C124
Many adverse health events (e.g., stress or smoking cravings) occur on a rapid basis. Digital technologies offer tremendous opportunities to deliver real-time behavioral interventions in everyday settings. This vision is realized via just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAI)– an intervention design that guides the use of rapidly changing information about the person’s internal state and context to decide whether and how to intervene. To address scientific questions about how best to construct JITAIs, micro-randomized trials (MRT) are developed as an experimental design that collects data to study which just-in-time interventions are effective in prompting positive changes and under what contexts. However, missing data present challenges to the ability of MRTs to inform the development of JITAIs. This article focuses on the multiple sources of missing data in MRTs, which are illustrated using existing data from an MRT study, mobile assistance for regulating smoking (MARS). MARS (n=99) involved a 10-day MRT that included up to six microrandomizations per day. We investigate missing data patterns in different types of MRT variables and discuss how the different sources of missingness differentially impact the bias, variance, interpretation, and generalizability of the estimated intervention effect. We also provide recommendations on how to include missing data as a part of JITAI decision rules and how MRT data can be analyzed to empirically inform the best strategy for managing missingness in future JITAIs.
Keywords: Methodology, Intervention

Authors and Affliiates

Co-Author: Lizbeth Benson, PhD, PhD, University of Michigan
Co-Author: John Dziak, University of Illinois
Co-Author: Jamie Yap, University of Michigan
Co-Author: Lindsey Potter, MPH, PhD, MPH, PhD, University of Utah
Co-Author: Cho Lam, PhD, PhD, University of Utah
Co-Author: David W. Wetter, PhD, PhD, University of Utah and Huntsman Cancer Institute
Co-Author: Dusti R. Jones, PhD, PhD, Center for HOPE, Huntsman Cancer Institute
Co-Author: Inbal Billie Nahum-Shani, PhD, PhD, University of Michigan

C124 - Missing Data in Microrandomized Trials: Challenges and Opportunities

Category

Scientific > Poster/Paper/Live Research Spotlight