RESEARCH INTERESTS

Dr. Fairclough current research interests include the design and analysis of longitudinal studies of Quality of Life with non-random missing data due to disease morbidity or mortality. She has recently published a book entitled “Design and Analysis of Quality of Life Research in Clinical Trials” and has published over 100 publications on topics related to Quality of Life and psychosocial sequelae of cancer and its therapy in pediatric and adult patients.

Non-random missing data in longitudinal studies: In recent years, Dr. Fairclough has been extensively involved in exploring analytic methods for longitudinal studies with non-random missing data. This has included the examination of multiple imputation techniques, mixed-effects selection models and mixture models. As a results of collaborative efforts with major cancer cooperative groups (ECOG, IBCSG) and other consulting responsibilities, she has access to a number of large randomized trials to examine the performance of various methods in realistic settings.

Psychosocial outcomes of cancer: Dr. Fairclough is currently a member of the Pediatric Adaptation to Pediatric Cancer (PACC) collaboration and directs their Data management and Statistics Core. These investigations include interventions for the mothers and siblings of newly diagnosed pediatric cancer patients, children with cognitive impairments, bereaved mothers, and pediatric oncology nurses. Included in this are methodological investigations of mediational models. Dr. Fairclough also is a co-investigator on several of the Eastern Cooperative Group trials
investigating quality of life in patients with advanced cancer.

Measurement of Quality of Life (QOL): An additional area of research is the measurement of health-related QOL. One of the areas that she has recently explored are the scoring of QOL scales in the presence of missing items.