Premium
Assessing the gain in efficiency due to matching in a community intervention study
Author(s) -
Freedman L. S.,
Green S. B.,
Byar D. P.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.4780090810
Subject(s) - matching (statistics) , outcome (game theory) , randomization , randomized controlled trial , statistics , baseline (sea) , smoking cessation , medicine , econometrics , mathematics , oceanography , mathematical economics , pathology , geology
COMMIT (Community Intervention Trial for Smoking Cessation) is a randomized study employing a matched pairs design. Pairs of communities were selected on the basis of their geographical proximity and were chosen to be matched on variables strongly expected to relate to the outcome variable, the smoking quit rate. However, quantitative information was not available to evaluate the efficiency gain from matching. We have used baseline smoking quit rates in the communities as a surrogate for the outcome measure to evaluate the gain in efficiency from the matching. Our method takes account of the possible imperfection of the surrogate as a representative of the true outcome. The method estimates an efficiency gain of at least 50 per cent using the matched design. We also evaluate the further gains in efficiency which would be made by using the baseline quit rate to balance the randomization.