SUMMARY
David M. Zahrieh, Ph.D., studies how pragmatic randomized clinical trials are designed, conducted, reported and analyzed. Dr. Zahrieh's research areas include developing spatial epidemiologic models and applying Bayesian disease mapping to quantify variations in health outcomes among understudied groups.
Focus areas
Cancer care delivery research
Dr. Zahrieh collaborates on pragmatic randomized clinical trials in cancer care delivery. Pragmatic trials are designed to better reflect real-world conditions so that results are more likely to apply to everyday patient care. Dr. Zahrieh offers guidance to investigators and data and safety monitoring boards about what pragmatic trial information to evaluate, report and review.
Health outcomes variations
Dr. Zahrieh applies Bayesian disease mapping to quantify potential gaps or variations in health outcomes. For example, Dr. Zahrieh and colleagues used Bayesian disease mapping to quantify variations in breast cancer incidence for Native Americans and Alaska Native women in New Mexico.
This novel application of their spatial model demonstrates the importance of accounting for spatial variation. It highlights the advantages of applying spatial modeling within the Bayesian framework over traditional, nonspatial epidemiologic techniques when quantifying health variations.
Patient-reported outcomes research
Dr. Zahrieh studies the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials for patient-reported outcomes in breast cancer and melanoma. He researches quality-adjusted survival, with a focus on personalizing care and facilitating decision-making between healthcare professionals and patients when evaluating treatment regimens.
Significance to patient care
Dr. Zahrieh researches cancer clinical trials, especially pragmatic clinical trials. These are trials that involve patients from many backgrounds and that better reflect real-life settings. Dr. Zahrieh studies how clinical trials are designed and conducted and how results are reported and analyzed. He also identifies health variations based on different cultural backgrounds. Insights from his research can be used to create new and better approaches to clinical trials and patient care.