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Health Services Research (HSR) Methods
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Link List for Methodological Papers and Reports

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ): MEPS Methodology Reports.
A series of reports on sample design and survey methods used to conduct MEPS.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ): MEPS Working Papers
Staff from the Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends develop these working papers, which have not been peer-reviewed, in order to provide preliminary analysis of substantive, technical, and methodological issues related to MEPS.

American Statistical Society (AMSTAT): Proceedings from the Section on Survey Researchers
Provides links to the proceedings of the Survey Research Section of the American Statistical Society annual meeting from 1978-2005. Full text of select papers is available. Topics include sampling, non-sampling areas, education, publication, and ethics related to survey research.

Bandolier: Evidence Based Thinking about Health Care
Systematic reviews on a wide variety of health topics including evidence-based studies organized by age groups to which the studies apply. White papers and booklets on methods in evidence-based medicine, as well as a glossary of terms.

CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report — United States, 2011
Released as a supplement to CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, this report addresses disparities at the national level in health care access, exposure to environmental hazards, mortality, morbidity, behavioral risk factors, disability status and social determinants of health – the conditions in which people are born, grow, live and work. This report explains that while substantial progress in improving health for most U.S. residents has been made in recent years, persistent disparities continue to exist.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Eighth Conference on Health Survey Research Methods
The eighth in a series of conferences to examine critical methodological issues in health survey research. The conference was held in Peachtree City, Georgia on February 20–23, 2004. Survey papers focused on a variety of current issues in health survey research including: measuring diversity and change in a dynamic population; community participation in surveys; cross-cultural challenges including language issues and measurement of small populations; current issues related to conducting surveys in the 21st century, including new survey modes such as web surveys; and HIPAA and Privacy issues.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Vital and Health Statistics. Series 2, Data Evaluation and Methods Research
Provides access to studies employing new statistical methods. Methods used by U.S. researchers are compared to those in other countries. Part of the rainbow series.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Vital and Health Statistics. Series 6, Cognition and Survey Measurement
Provides PDFs of reports from the National Laboratory for Collaborative Research in Cognition and Survey Measurement. The focus of these papers is the methods of cognitive science to design, evaluate, and test survey instruments. Part of the rainbow series.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Seventh Conference on Health Survey Research
The seventh in a series of conferences to examine critical methodological issues in health survey research. The conference was held in Williamsburg, Virginia on September 24-27, 1999. Survey papers focused on a variety of current issues in health survey research including: collecting information on children and adolescents; cross-cultural adaptation and response by cultural group; and data comparability across a variety of modes of data collection.

Centre for Reviews and Disseminations (CRD): Undertaking Systematic Reviews of Research on Effectiveness
This paper takes the reader through a step-by-step process on how to plan, conduct, and report a review. Steps are divided into phases. Translating evidence into practice is also discussed.

Clinical Trials Networks Best Practices: Publications/Articles
Provides links to publications and articles related to clinical research including NIH reports on policies and budgets, grant policies, and topics on biomedical research.

Consort Guide to Reporting the Results of Randomized Clinical Trials
CONSORT statement of guidelines for the conduct of RCTs.

Digital Infrastructure for the Learning Health System: The Foundation for Continuous Improvement in Health and Health Care: Workshop Series Summary
This report from the Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Value & Science-Driven Health Care explores current efforts and opportunities to accelerate progress in improving health and health care with information technology systems.

EconPapers
Access to RePEc (Research Papers in Economics), a collaboration of economists from around the world, focused on disseminating research in economics. Working papers, journal articles, computing code and book chapters are listed and most are freely available for download.

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): Research Methods Programme
The Research Methods Programme is part of the ESRC, and is designed to improve methodological standards in social science research. Includes a set of methodolocal papers, briefs, working papers, and other resources listed under the 'publications' section of the site.

Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Methods Series Reports
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) recently released two new Methods Series reports. Methods Report #2011-06, Methods Applying AHRQ Quality Indicators to Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Data for Ninth (2011) NHQR and NHDR Report, describes the methods for applying the AHRQ Quality Indicators (QIs) to HCUP data for the NHQR and NHDR. Analyses were conducted to calculate costs associated with QIs, determine benchmarks for state performance for the QIs, compare inpatient and emergency department use for select QI measures, and evaluate readmissions for select chronic conditions.

Institute of Medicine (IOM): Standards for Systematic Reviews
Recently released by the Institute of Medicine, this report recommends standards for systematic reviews of the comparative effectiveness of medical or surgical interventions.

International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR)
Access is provided to the ISPOR research digest, an online database of research papers presented at ISPOR research meetings since 1998. ISPOR research practice guidelines, suggested reading, and working papers on methodological issues are available.

ISPOR-SMDM Joint Modeling Good Research Practices Task Force Recommendations
Developed by leading experts in decision analysis, economics, simulation, and health services, these seven reports provide comprehensive guidance for designing, implementing, and validating model-based studies to inform medical decision making.

Methods for Future Research
A new series of reports titled, “Future Research Needs – Methods Research,” is now available from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). These publications provide guidance on methodological approaches to identifying gaps in clinical evidence. The reports complement the Future Research Needs series, which identifies gaps in clinical evidence so that researchers and funders can improve the body of knowledge for health care decision makers.

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
NBER provides research papers on a variety of technical, economic issues in four main areas of research: new statistical measurements, quantitative models of economic behavior, effects of public policy on the economy, and the effects of alternative policy proposals. NBER is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that provides information on how the economy works. Most papers are available to download for a fee.

National Cancer Institute (NCI): Statistical Research and applications
Cancer statistics, as well as methods and software for analyzing cancer data are available.

National Coordinating Centre for Health Technology Assessment (NCCHTA): Generalizability in economic evaluation studies in healthcare: a review and case studies
This study was conducted to evaluate methods used in economic evaluation studies. One of its aims was to increase the generalization of economic, including cost-effectiveness, evaluations. A PDF version is available for download.

National Coordinating Centre for Health Technology Assessment (NCCHTA): A pilot study on the use of decision theory and value of information analysis
Developed as part of the NHS Health Technology Assessment Program, this paper describes a pilot study conducted by the University of York's Centre of Health Economics Research Team. A PDF version is available for download.

National Coordinating Centre for Health Technology Assessment (NCCHTA): Development and validation of methods for assessing the quality of diagnostic accuracy studies
A report on the process of developing a quality assessment tool for reviews of diagnostic accuracy. The quality assessment tool designed by the study is available for download.

National Healthcare Quality Report
Information on conceptualizing measures employed in the National Healthcare Quality Report.

National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE)
Information on the effectiveness research conducted at NICE, including methods for conducting studies and findings.

National Institutes of Health Mixed Methods Research Guidebook
The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) developed this guidebook on best practices for development and evaluating mixed methods research.

Oregon Health Sciences University's (OHSU) Evidence Based Practice Center
Information on the Centers comparative effectiveness work, is provides, as is access to many of the Centers publications. The OHSU Evidence Based Practice Center conducts healthcare topic reviews including cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) and evidence-based medicine studies (EBM) for federal and state governments, and private foundations.

Penn State Methodology Center
A collection of technical reports by center investigators.

Public Health Training Network
An alphabetical index of public health products and studies.

Surveying Persons with Disabilities: A Source Guide. Jason Markesich, James Cashion, and Martha Bleeker, June 2006.
This source guide is a collaboration between the Cornell Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics at Mathematica, and provides up-to-date and easily accessible research on the methodological issues associated with surveying persons with disabilities. The guide contains 150 abstracts, summaries, and references, as we as a subject index, and will be updated periodically.

The Research Data Assistance Center (ResDAC)
The ResDAC provides support to academic, government, and non-profit researchers using Medicare and/or Medicaid data. Epidemiologists, biostatisticians, health services researchers, and health informatics specialists from the University of Minnesota are available to provide technical assistance on topics including requesting and accessing datasets. Technical papers on topics such as identifying emergency room visits using Medicare claims data, limitations to identifying dual eligibles, and information on how claims files are generated are available.

World Health Organization Methodology Reader
This WHO Reader aims to support the development of the field of health policy and systems research (HPSR), particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It complements the range of relevant texts that are already available by providing a particular focus on methodological issues for primary empirical health policy and systems research.