Dr. Testa's Instructional Resources

Dr. Marcia Testa

Clinical Research Program

Day 1 Morning Session

Day 1 Afternoon Session

Day 2 Morning Session

Day 2 Afternoon Session

Day 3 Morning Session

Radiation Safety

Simonson

Testa

Testa_01

Ware

Wellesley School Absences

ID 270 -Summer Only

LAMPS Investigator Review

HSPH Courses

Postmarket Surveillance

ID 538

MDA Course 2012

Biopharm Materials - WK 1

Pharm Stats Units 1-3

Pharm Stats Units 4 -5

Biopharm Materials Wk 2

Instructor Only

Marcia A. Testa, M.P.H., M.Phil., Ph.D. is a Senior Lecturer on Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts (www.hsph.harvard.edu). 


Education
Dr. Testa received her M.P.H.’76,  M.Phil.’77,  and Ph.D.’80 in Epidemiology and Public Health with concentrations in biostatistics and epidemiology from Yale University (http://publichealth.yale.edu/).

Current Professional and Elected Positions
Dr. Testa is Vice-Chair, Wellesley Board of Health; Executive Board Member, Massachusetts Association of Health Boards (www.mahb.org), Governing Councilor and Past Chair, Statistics Section, American Public Health Association (www.apha.org); Chairman, Phase V Technologies, Inc. (www.phasevtechnologies.com).
 
Marcia A. Testa, MPH, MPhil, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Harvard School of Public Health
Professional Experience
Dr. Testa was previously an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine where she also was Director of the Biostatistics Research Center, University of Connecticut Health Center (1979-87).  She has been a faculty member at the Harvard School of Public Health in the Department of Biostatistics since 1987.  She currently teaches Bio 202: Principles of Biostatistics; ID 265: Practice of Quantitative Methods; HPM 530: Measuring and Analysing the Outcomes of Healthcare; ID 270 MPH Summer MPH Practicum in Quantitative Methods; ID 538: Foundations of Public Health and the Continuing Medical and Professional Education course "Measurement, Design and Analysis of Health Outcomes Research.  She has authored over 90 original research publications, served as Chair of the Statistics Section of the American Public Health Association, Co-Director of the Masters in Public Health Program in Quantitative Methods at Harvard and Head of the Evaluation Core for the Center for Public Health Preparedness, Division of Public Health Practice.  In 2008 she was the recipient of the APHA Statistics Section Award and also served as the Chair of the 100th Anniversary Celebration at the 2008 APHA Annual Meeting. She is an elected official of the Wellesley Board of Health, Wellesley, MA serving as its Vice Chair and overseeing public health for Wellesley's 27,000 residents.  She is also the founder and current Chairman of Phase V Technologies, Inc., Wellesley, MA, a company specializing in health outcomes information technologies since 1987.  

Harvard School of Public Health Web Page

Go to http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/marcia-testa/

Research

Dr. Testa and colleagues are developing quantitative methods relating to the measurement and analysis of expanded patient outcomes (quality of life, cost-effectiveness and risk-benefit) for clinical, pharmacoeconomic, pharmacoepidemiologic, and quality of care research studies with particular application to cardiovascular disease, HIV, and diabetes.

Quality of Life, Patient Satisfaction and Clinical Decision Making

Dr. Testa is working on analytical and statistical methods for conducting outcomes research for pharmaceutical drug development, disease management and quality of care programs. As part of this methodologic work, she is analyzing a comprehensive database of patients who have participated in large-scale clinical trials of antihypertensive and diabetes therapies to evaluate differential treatment effects on quality-of-life outcomes including mood, vitality, sleep, cognitive functioning, sexual dysfunctioning, work/social role functioning and physical symptoms. Dr. Testa is exploring the relationships between treatment satisfaction, glycemic control, hypo and hyperglycemic symptomatology, quality of life and health care utilization during the treatment of patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.


Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmacoepidemiology

As part of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group, Dr. Testa and colleagues are evaluating the quality-of-life impact of treatment for HIV in medication adherence models. Adherence to HIV therapy has implications for the cost-effectiveness of new treatments. Dr. Testa is also currently developing database systems and electronic reporting devices (e-diaries) for monitoring health outcomes and for surveying resource utilization and costs for inclusion into pharmacoeconomic models. She has guided doctoral research in the areas of health outcomes and pharmacoepidemiology evaluating patient compliance and health status using large patient information systems.


Statistical Methods for Quality-of-Life Outcomes Research and Drug Development

Dr. Testa and colleagues are developing more sophisticated methods for dealing with the analysis of expanded patient outcomes. The statistical and analytical issues involve applications of item response theory and structural equation modeling to the analysis of quality-of-life and patient satisfaction data. Other topics of research interest include:

  1. measurement, involving the response structure of multi-dimensional constructs, intervention and non-intervention based validities, and respondent variability;
  2. hypothesis testing, including estimation of power, simultaneous test procedures, global hypothesis testing, longitudinal models, and the effects of missing data, early withdrawal, length bias and confounding; and
  3. overall effectiveness models, specifically quality-adjustment measures, and health state transition and utility models.

Selected Publications (out of 90)

Testa MA, Simonson DC. Satisfaction and quality of life with premeal inhaled versus injected insulin in adolescents and adults with type 1 diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2007 Mar 2 (Epub ahead of print).

Dorn BC, Savoia E, Testa MA, Stoto MA, Marcus LJ.Development of a survey instrument to measure connectivity to evaluate national public health preparedness and response performance, Public Health Reports, in press.

Meaney PA, Nadkarni VM, Cook EF, Testa M, Helfaer M, Kaye W, Larkin GL, Berg RA;American Heart Association National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Investigators. Higher survival rates among younger patients after pediatric intensive care unit cardiac arrests. Pediatrics. 2006;118:2424-33.

Straus DJ, Testa MA, Sarokhan BJ, Czuczman MS, Tulpule A, Turner RT, Riggs SA.Treatment of Mild Anemia: a randomized trial of epoetin alfa in patients receiving chemotherapy for hematologic malignancies, Cancer, 2006;107:1909-1917.

Beal AC, Chou SC, Palmer RH, Testa MA, Newman C, Ezhuthachan S. The changing face of race: risk factors for neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. Pediatrics. 2006 May;117(5):1618-25.

Fletcher CV, Testa MA, Brundage RC, Chesney MA, Haubrich R, Acosta EP, Martinez A, Jiang H, Gulick RM. Four measures of antiretroviral medication adherence and virologic response in AIDS clinical trials group study 359. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2005 Nov 1;40(3):301-6.

Max S, Testa MA. Latent Variable Growth Model Approach to Analyzing Multiple HealthOutcomes from Clinical Trials, Book Chapter, 2005.

Reynolds NR, Testa MA, Marc L, Chesney MA Neidig JL, Smith SR, Vella S, Robbins GK for the Protocol Teams of ACTG 384, ACTG 731 and A5031s. Factors influencing medication adherence beliefs and self-efficacy in persons naïve to antiretroviral therapy: a multi-center, cross-sectional study. AIDS and Behavior, 2004; 8:141-150.

Chou SC, Heather Palmer R, Ezhuthachan S, Newman C, Pradell-Boyd, B, Maisels J, Testa MA . Management of Hyperbilirubinemia in Newborns: Measuring Performance by Using a Benchmarking Model. Pediatrics 2004; 112: 1264-1273.

Yang CC, Jick SS, Testa MA . Who receives lipid-lowering drugs: the effects of comorbidities and patient characteristics on treatment initiation. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 2003; 55, 288-298.

Miles SA, Testa M , Huang J, Wade M, Carden J, Scadden DT. Lack of antitumor activity and intolerance of interleukin-4 in patients with advanced HIV disease and Kaposi's sarcoma. J Interferon Cytokine Res. 2002 ;22:1143-8.

Bacon CG, Giovannucci E, Testa M, Kawachi I. The impact of cancer treatment on quality of life outcomes for patients with localized prostate cancer. J Urol 2001;166(5):1804-10.

Testa MA. Methods and applications of quality-of-life measurement during antihypertensive therapy. Curr Hypertens Rep. 2000; (6):530-7.

Testa MA. Interpretation of quality of life outcomes: Issues that affect magnitude and meaning. Medical Care 2000; 38 [suppl II]:II-166-II-174.

Testa MA. Quality-of-life assessment in diabetes research: Interpreting the magnitude and meaning of treatment effects. Diabetes Spectrum, 2000; 13:36-41.

Testa MA and Lenderking WR. The impact of AIDS-associated wasting on quality of life: Qualitative issues of measurement and evaluation. Journal of Nutrition, 1999;129:282S-289S.

Testa MA, Simonson DC. Health economic benefits and quality of life during improved glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A randomized controlled, double-blind trial. JAMA, 1998; 280:1490-1496.

Testa MA and Simonson DC. Assessing quality-of-life outcomes. N Engl J Med, 1996; 334:835-840.

Testa MA, Nackley JF. Methods for quality-of-life studies. Annu Rev Public Health 1994; 15:535-59.

Testa MA, Anderson RB, Nackley JF and Hollenberg NK: Quality of life and antihypertensive therapy in men: A comparison of captopril with enalapril N Eng J Med 1993; 328:907-13.



Web Links

For Harvard Webpage go to  http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/marcia-testa/

Dr. Testa's Instructional Resources -- Copyright © 2007 by Marica A. Testa, all rights reserved