Faculty Research Fellow, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
Investigator, The Methodology Center
Survey Research Center
Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan
426 Thompson Street, Suite 2204
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2321
734-936-3077
Education
Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2007 (Statistics)
M.A., University of Michigan, 2002 (Statistics)
B.S., University of Florida, 2000 (Mathematics)
Current Projects and Collaborators
I work in two related areas. First, I am interested in extending and applying methods for causal inference using longitudinal data sets in which treatments, covariates, and outcomes are time-varying. My collaborators on these projects include Susan Murphy, Bethany Bray, and Donna Coffman. Second, I am interested in the application of study designs, in particular sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trials (SMARTs), and the development of statistical methods that can be used to form adaptive interventions. In this area, I work with Susan Murphy and Inbal Nahum-Shani.
Recent Teaching
Graduate
Topics in Clinical Research (Ad-hoc Lecturer): Clinical Research Training Program, Duke University Medical Center: Winter 2008
Undergraduate
Introduction to Statistics (Discussion Leader): University of Michigan: Fall 2006, Winter 2007
Short Courses
Models for Examining the Impact of Time-Varying Treatments or Predictors: Association for Behavior and Cognitive Therapies, Orlando, November 2008
Honors and Awards
2001-2006: Rackham Merit Doctoral Fellowship, University of Michigan
2006: Rackham Travel Award to present at the International Biometric Society's Spring Meetings. University of Michigan
2006: Distinguished Student Paper Award, International Biometric Society's Eastern North American Region subdivision
2000-2001: Tuition and stipend support, Committee on Institutional Cooperation, University of Michigan
1999: Andersen Consulting Foundation Scholarship, University of Florida
1999: Colonel Glenn Farris Scholarship, Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida
1998-2000: Anderson Scholar, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Fall Convocations, University of Florida
1997, 1999: National Hispanic Scholarship Fund scholarship, University of Florida
1997: Glancy Scholarship, University of Florida
1996-2000: Florida Scholars Merit Scholarship, University of Florida
Research Interests
Causal inference: I am interested in extending and applying methods for causal inference using longitudinal data sets in with which time-varying treatments, covariates, and outcomes are time-varying.
Study design interests: I am also interested in the application of study designs, in particularly sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trials (SMARTs), and the development of statistical methods that can be used to form and evaluate adaptive interventions, sometimes known as adaptive treatment strategies or dynamic treatment regimes.
Substantive interests: As part of the Institute for Social Research, I participate in a wide variety of social science and treatment/intervention research. I am particularly interested in mental health (depression, sleep disorders), obesity, and substance abuse, especially as related to children and adolescents. If you are a clinical or behavioral health scientist in the early stages of research and study design who is interested in collaborating to design a SMART, please send me an email.
Key words: causal inference, propensity score methods, marginal and structural nested mean models, methods for longitudinal data analysis, health services research, mental health, substance abuse, obesity, dynamic treatment regimes, adaptive treatment strategies, sequential multiple assignment randomized trials
Current Grants
Dynamic Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Its Impact on Child Over-Weight
United States Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Agreement 58-4000-0-0026
2010-present; Role: Principal Investigator
Pilot Project: Causal Inference in the Presence of Time-Varying Confounders
National Institute on Drug Abuse, P50-DA10075
2010-present; Role: Principal Investigator
SMART Methodology for Constructing Adaptive Treatments
National Institute on Drug Abuse, P50-DA10075
2010-present; Role: Co-Investigator (PI: Susan Murphy)
Family Supported Smoking Cessation for Chronically Ill Veterans
Department of Veterans A airs, VHA, IIR-05-202-2
2007-2012; Role: Co-Investigator (PI: Lori Bastian)
Family Based Treatment of Early Childhood OCD
National Institute of Mental Health, R01-MH079154
2007-2012; Role: Co-Investigator (PI: John March)
Selected Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Almirall, D., Compton, S. N., Rynn, M. A., Walkup, J. T., & Murphy, S. A. (2012). SMARTer discontinuation trial designs for developing an adaptive treatment strategy. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 22(5), 364-374. PMCID: PMC3482379
Almirall, D., McCaffrey, D. F., Griffin, B. A., Ramchand, R., Yuen, R. A., & Murphy, S. A. (2012). Examining moderated effects of additional adolescent substance use treatment: Structural nested mean model estimation using inverse-weighted regression with residuals (Technical report). University Park, PA: The Methodology Center, Penn State.
Almirall, D., Lizotte, D., & Murphy, S. A. (2012). Comment: SMART design issues and the consideration of opposing outcomes: Discussion of “Evaluation of Viable Dynamic Treatment Regimes in a Sequentially Randomized Trial of Advanced Prostate Cancer” by Wang, Rotnitzky, Lin, Millikan, and Thall. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 107, 509-512.
Nahum-Shani, I., Qian, M., Almirall, D., Pelham, W., Gnagy, B., Fabiano, G., … Murphy, S. A. (2012). Experimental design and primary data analysis methods for comparing adaptive interventions. Psychological Methods, 17, 457-77. PMC Journal- In process
Nahum-Shani, I., Qian, M., Almirall, D., Pelham, W., Gnagy, B., Fabiano, G., … Murphy, S. A. (2012). Q-learning: A data analysis method for constructing adaptive interventions. Psychological Methods, 17, 478-494. PMC Journal- In process
Almirall, D., Compton, S. N., Gunlicks-Stoessel, M., Duan, N., & Murphy, S. A. (2012). Designing a pilot sequential multiple assignment randomized trial for developing an adaptive treatment strategy. Statistics in Medicine, 31(17), 1887-1902. PMCID: PMC3399974
Almirall, D., McCaffrey, D. F., Ramchand, R., & Murphy, S. A. (2011). Subgroups analysis when treatment and moderators are time-varying. Prevention Science. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1007/s11121-011-0208-7 PMCID: PMC3135740
Almirall, D., Ten Have, T., & Murphy, S. A. (2010). Structural nested mean models for assessing time-varying effect moderation. Biometrics, 66(1), 131-139. PMCID: PMC2875310
Bosworth H. B., Almirall D., Weiner B. J., Maciejewski M., Kaufman M. A., Powers B. J., Oddone E. Z., Shoou-Yih D. L., Damush T., Newell M, Smith V., Anderson D., Roumie C., & Jackson G. L. for HTNIMPROVE Investigators (2010). The implementation of a translational study involving a primary care based behavioral program to improve blood pressure control: The HTN-IMPROVE study protocol. Implementation Science, 5, 54.. PMCID: PMC2914777
Sanchez-Ortu~no M. M., Edinger J. D., Almirall D., & Means M. K. (2010). Home is where sleep is: An ecological approach to test the validity of actigraphy for the assessment of insomnia. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 6(1) 21-29. PMCID: PMC2823272
Almirall, D., Ten Have, T., & Murphy, S. A. (2010). Structural nested mean models for assessing time-varying effect moderation.Biometrics, 66(1), 131-139. PMCID: PMC2875310
Gellad Z. F., Almirall D., Provenzale D., & Fisher D. A. (2009). Time from positive screening fecal occult blood test to colonoscopy and risk of neoplasia. Digestive Disease Sciences, 59, 2497-2502.
Yancy W. S., Almirall D., Maciejewski M. L., Kolotkin R. L., McDuffie J. R., & Westman E. C. (2009.) Effects for two weight loss diets on health-related quality of life. Quality of Life Research 18(3): 281-89.
Bray B. C., Almirall D., Zimmerman R. S., Lynam D., Murphy S.A. (2006). Assessing the total effect of time-varying predictors in prevention research. Prevention Science 7(1): 1-17.
Mithas S., Almirall D., Krishnan M. S. (2006). Using propensity scores for causal inference: Do CRM systems cause one-to-one marketing effectiveness? Statistical Science 21(2): 223-33.
Newburger J. W., Wypij D., Bellinger D. C., du Plessis A. J., Kuban K. C., Rappaport L. A., Almirall D., Wessel D. L., Jonas R. A., Wernovsky G. (2003). Length of stay after infant heart surgery is associated with long-term cognitive outcome. Journal of Pediatrics July, 143, 67-73.
Book Chapters
Almirall D., Coffman C. J., Yancy W. S., & Murphy S. A. (2010). Maximum likelihood estimation of the structural nested mean model using SAS PROC NLP. In D. Faries, A. Leon, J.M. Haro, & B. Obenchain (Eds), Analysis of Observational Health-Care Data Using SAS. Cary, NC: SAS Press.
Murphy S. A., & Almirall D. (2009). Dynamic treatment regimens. In M. W. Kattan (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Medical Decision Making. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Mithas S., Almirall D., & Krishnan M. S. (2009). A framework for causal enquiry in information systems for observational studies. In R.J. Kauffman & P.P. Tallon (Eds.), Economics, information systems, and electronic commerce research II: Advanced empirical methodologies. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Presentations
Almirall, D. (2013, February). Getting SMART about developing individualized, adaptive health interventions. Presented at An Introduction to a Novel Experimental Study Design WOrkshop, University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore, MD.
Almirall, D., Collins, L. M., & Murphy, S. A. (2012, November). Getting SMART about the design of experimental trials for the development of adaptive health interventions. Presented at the second Innovative Methods Program for Advancing Clinical Trials, Raleigh, NC.
Almirall, D., & Murphy, S. A. (2012, October). Piloting and sizing sequential multiple assignment randomized trials na dynamic treatment regime development. Presented at the International Conference on Statistics and Combinatorics, Greensboro, NC.
Almirall, D., McCaffrey, D., Griffin, B. A., Ramchand, R., & Murphy, S. A. (2012, September). Examining moderated eects of additional adolescent substance use treatment: Structural nested mean model estimation using inverse-weighted regression-with-residuals. Presented at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA.
Almirall D. (2012, July). Getting SMART about developing individualized, adaptive health interventions: An introduction to a novel experimental study design. Invited workshop presented at the 6th Annual Advanced Training Institute on Health Behavior Theory, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
Almirall D., & Murphy S. A. (2012, June). Getting SMART about developing individualized, adaptive health interventions. Workshop presented for Methods Work, Chicago, IL.
Almirall D., & Patrick, M. (2012, March). An adaptive intervention for reducing college student alcohol-related consequences: A SMART pilot study proposal. Presented at the Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
Almirall D., Compton S. N., & Murphy S. A. (2012, March). Developing adaptive health interventions: Getting SMART. Invited talk presented at the AIMS Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
Almirall D., McCaffrey D. F., Griffin B. A., Ramchand, R., & Murphy S. A. (2012, July). Examining moderated effects of additional adolescent substance use treatment: Structural nested mean model estimation using inverse-weighted regression-with-residuals. Invited Seminar presented at the Asia Pacific Rim Meeting of the International Mathematical Statistics Society, Tsukubu, Japan.
Almirall, D., & Murphy, S. A. (2011, November). Developing dynamic, sequential interventions that optimize mental health outcomes: Novel clinical trial design and data analysis strategies. Seminar presented at the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Convention, Toronto, Canada.
Almirall, D. (2011, October). Introduction to adaptive interventions and SMART study design principles. Workshop presented at Addiction Health Services Research Conference, Fairfax, VA.
Almirall, D. (2011, October). Introduction to adaptive interventions and SMART study design principles. Workshop presented at the Annual Meeting of the Obesity Society, Orlando, FL.
Almirall, D., Collins, L. M., & Murphy, S. A. (2011, June). Experimental designs for developing adaptive treatment strategies. Presented at the Childhood Obesity Prevention and Treatment Research (COPTR) research program. Teleconference.
Almirall, D., Compton, S. N., & Murphy, S. A. (2011, April). Experimental designs for developing adaptive treatment strategies. Preconference workshop presented at the Society of Behavioral Medicine Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions, Washington, DC.
Almirall, D., Compton, S. N., & Murphy, S. A. (2010, June). Experimental designs for developing adaptive treatment strategies: With application to the management of bipolar disorder. Presented at the International College of Neuro-Psychopharmacology (CINP) Congress, Hong Kong, China.
Almirall, D., McCaffrey, D. F., Griffin, B. A., & Murphy, S. A. (2010, August). Time-varying causal effect moderation in the presence of time-varying confounding using structural nested mean models. Presented at the Joint Statistical Meetings, Vancouver, Canada.
Software
PROC QLEARN (Version 1.0) [Software] (2012). University Park: The Methodology Center, Penn State. Retrieved from http://methodology.psu.edu
Ertefaie, A., Almirall, D. A., Huang L., Dziak, J. J., Wagner, A. T., & Murphy, S. A. (2012). SAS PROC QLEARN users’ guide (Version 1.0). University Park: The Methodology Center, Penn State. Retrieved from http://methodology.psu.edu