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Subgroup Analysis: “What Works Best for Whom and Why?”

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Prevention of Substance Use

Part of the book series: Advances in Prevention Science ((Adv. Prevention Science))

Abstract

Subgroup analyses are often performed in prevention studies to assess whether intervention effects vary across subpopulations. The simple question “what works” has been replaced more and more by the advanced “what works for whom,” with the consequence of paying more attention to methodological and statistical approaches that can be used to answer this question. In the last two decades, advanced statistical models and their associated software tools have become widely available and, together with increasing computing power, have been frequently applied in prevention research. This chapter attempts to give an introductory overview on this topic in a nontechnical way. The description of statistical methods for the analysis of subgroup data can be skipped by readers who may not be interested in the application of these techniques. In a final section, strategies for dealing with the risks and limitations of subgroup analysis are discussed and some agreed-upon recommendations for reporting of results are provided.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A special situation arises in some universal prevention trials where it is not expected to find an overall effect, but only for a specific subgroup. For technical and/or ethical reasons, however, it is not possible to apply targeted prevention to this subgroup. For example, Petras et al. (2011) evaluated the program Good Behavior Game in school classes and expected that the impact on aggressive behavior was concentrated among high aggressive boys. Usually, though, overall effects are reported in universal prevention, and the effect sizes of the full trial are included in meta-analysis.

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Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge thoughtful comments and suggestions provided by Hanno Petras, Zili Sloboda and Anke de Haan on an earlier version of this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Ulm, Ulm, Germany

    Ferdinand Keller

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  1. Ferdinand Keller
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Correspondence to Ferdinand Keller .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Prevention Science International, Ontario, OH, USA

    Zili Sloboda

  2. AIR, Washington, DC, USA

    Hanno Petras

  3. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

    Elizabeth Robertson

  4. Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Rockville, MD, USA

    Ralph Hingson

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Keller, F. (2019). Subgroup Analysis: “What Works Best for Whom and Why?”. In: Sloboda, Z., Petras, H., Robertson, E., Hingson, R. (eds) Prevention of Substance Use. Advances in Prevention Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00627-3_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00627-3_16

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-00627-3

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