Jillian Strayhorn
Jillian Strayhorn
Scroll
Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences
-
Professional overview
-
Jillian C. Strayhorn, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at GPH and Associate Director of its Center for the Advancement and Dissemination of Intervention Optimization (cadio). She is a quantitative methodologist and decision scientist whose research focuses on the complex multi-criteria decision-making that goes into optimizing multicomponent interventions to achieve public health impact.
Dr. Strayhorn is an expert on the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), a framework for optimizing behavioral, biobehavioral, and social-structural interventions. Her work in intervention optimization is highly interdisciplinary, bringing together ideas and methods from Bayesian statistics, health economics and multi-criteria decision analysis. The driving mission of this work is to enable more successful identification and advancement of high-value interventions capable of accomplishing complex objectives, including objectives that involve multiple outcomes, efficiency of resource use, or health equity. Dr. Strayhorn collaborates on applications of MOST across various areas of public health, including cancer risk reduction, smoking cessation, HIV, substance misuse, and mental health, among others.
Dr. Strayhorn earned her BA in Psychology, summa cum laude with distinction in all subjects, at Cornell University, and her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies at Pennsylvania State University, where she was the recipient of a Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA predoctoral award (F31) from the National Institute on Drug Abuse . Her latest work has been published in Psychological Methods, Health Psychology, and Translational Behavioral Medicine.
-
Education
-
BA, Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NYMS, Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PAPhD, Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
-
Honors and awards
-
Alumni Association Dissertation Award, Pennsylvania State University (2022)Student Optimization of Behavioral and Biobehavioral Interventions Research Award, Society of Behavioral Medicine (2021)Merrill Presidential Scholar Award, Cornell University (2014)Phi Beta Kappa Junior Inductee, Cornell University (2013)Robinson-Appel Humanitarian Award, Cornell University (2013)
-
Publications
Publications
Raising expectations for D&I science: Intervention optimization as an opportunity to move toward implementability and equitability.
AbstractStrayhorn, J., Collins, L., Guastaferro, K., & Shelley, D. (n.d.).Publication year
2023AbstractThe emerging field of intervention optimization offers implementation science opportunities in several areas. In this session we offer an orientation to intervention optimization via the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), followed by two presentations highlighting recent methodological developments in the intersection between intervention optimization and implementation science: first, in the optimization of multicomponent implementation strategies, and second, in optimizing to achieve not only effectiveness and implementability but also equitability (and even, we suggest, equitability in implementation). Panel chair Dr. Linda M. Collins and discussant Dr. Donna Shelley will then lead a discussion on implications and next steps for D&I science.Optimizing educational interventions in crisis contexts through the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST).
AbstractCollins, L., Guastaferro, K., & Strayhorn, J. (n.d.).Publication year
2022Abstract~Using factorial mediation analysis to better understand the effects of interventions
AbstractStrayhorn, J., Collins, L. M., Brick, T. R., Marchese, S. H., Pfammatter, A. F., Pellegrini, C., & Spring, B. (n.d.).Publication year
2022Journal title
Translational behavioral medicineVolume
12Issue
1AbstractTo improve understanding of how interventions work or why they do not work, there is need for methods of testing hypotheses about the causal mechanisms underlying the individual and combined effects of the components that make up interventions. Factorial mediation analysis, i.e., mediation analysis applied to data from a factorial optimization trial, enables testing such hypotheses. In this commentary, we demonstrate how factorial mediation analysis can contribute detailed information about an intervention's causal mechanisms. We briefly review the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) and the factorial experiment. We use an empirical example from a 25 factorial optimization trial to demonstrate how factorial mediation analysis opens possibilities for better understanding the individual and combined effects of intervention components. Factorial mediation analysis has important potential to advance theory about interventions and to inform intervention improvements.One view of the next decade of research on behavioral and biobehavioral approaches to cancer prevention and control: intervention optimization
AbstractCollins, L. M., Strayhorn, J., & Vanness, D. J. (n.d.).Publication year
2021Journal title
Translational behavioral medicineVolume
11Issue
11Page(s)
1998-2008AbstractAs a new decade begins, we propose that the time is right to reexamine current methods and procedures and look for opportunities to accelerate progress in cancer prevention and control. In this article we offer our view of the next decade of research on behavioral and biobehavioral interventions for cancer prevention and control. We begin by discussing and questioning several implicit conventions. We then briefly introduce an alternative research framework: the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST). MOST, a principled framework for intervention development, optimization, and evaluation, stresses not only intervention effectiveness, but also intervention affordability, scalability, and efficiency. We review some current limitations of MOST along with future directions for methodological work in this area, and suggest some changes in the scientific environment we believe would permit wider adoption of intervention optimization. We propose that wider adoption of intervention optimization would have a positive impact on development and successful implementation of interventions for cancer prevention and control and on intervention science more broadly, including accumulation of a coherent base of knowledge about what works and what does not; establishment of an empirical basis for adaptation of interventions to different settings with different levels and types of resources; and, in the long run, acceleration of progress from Stage 0 to Stage V in the National Institutes of Health Model of Stages of Intervention Development.The multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) in child maltreatment prevention research
AbstractGuastaferro, K., Strayhorn, J., & Collins, L. M. (n.d.).Publication year
2021Journal title
Journal of child and family studiesVolume
30Issue
10Page(s)
2481-2491AbstractEach year hundreds of thousands of children and families receive behavioral interventions designed to prevent child maltreatment; yet rates of maltreatment have not declined in over a decade. To reduce the prevalence and prevent the life-long negative consequences of child maltreatment, behavioral interventions must not only be effective, but also affordable, scalable, and efficient to meet the demand for these services. An innovative approach to intervention science is needed. The purpose of this article is to introduce the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) to the field of child maltreatment prevention. MOST is an engineering-inspired framework for developing, optimizing, and evaluating multicomponent behavioral interventions. MOST enables intervention scientists to empirically examine the performance of each intervention component, independently and in combination. Using a hypothetical example of a home visiting intervention and artificial data, this article demonstrates how MOST may be used to optimize the of a parent-focused in-home intervention and the strategies of an intervention to increase completion rate to identify an intervention that is effective, efficient, economical, and scalable. We suggest that MOST will ultimately improve prevention science and hasten the progress of translational science to prevent child maltreatment.Lead exposure and the 2010 achievement test scores of children in New York counties
AbstractStrayhorn, J., & Strayhorn, J. M. (n.d.).Publication year
2012Journal title
Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental healthVolume
6Issue
1Page(s)
4AbstractLead is toxic to cognitive and behavioral functioning in children even at levels well below those producing physical symptoms. Continuing efforts in the U.S. since about the 1970s to reduce lead exposure in children have dramatically reduced the incidence of elevated blood lead levels (with elevated levels defined by the current U.S. Centers for Disease Control threshold of 10 μg/dl). The current study examines how much lead toxicity continues to impair the academic achievement of children of New York State, using 2010 test data.Martial arts research: prudent skepticism
AbstractStrayhorn, J. M., & Strayhorn, J. (n.d.).Publication year
2011Journal title
Science (New York, N.Y.)Volume
334Issue
6054Page(s)
310; author reply 311Abstract~Martial arts as a mental health intervention for children? Evidence from the ECLS-K
AbstractStrayhorn, J. M., & Strayhorn, J. (n.d.).Publication year
2009Journal title
Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental healthVolume
3Issue
1Page(s)
32AbstractMartial arts studios for children market their services as providing mental health outcomes such as self-esteem, self-confidence, concentration, and self-discipline. It appears that many parents enroll their children in martial arts in hopes of obtaining such outcomes. The current study used the data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten class of 1998-1999, to assess the effects of martial arts upon such outcomes as rated by classroom teachers.Religiosity and teen birth rate in the United States
AbstractStrayhorn, J. M., & Strayhorn, J. (n.d.).Publication year
2009Journal title
Reproductive healthVolume
6Page(s)
14AbstractThe children of teen mothers have been reported to have higher rates of several unfavorable mental health outcomes. Past research suggests several possible mechanisms for an association between religiosity and teen birth rate in communities.Applying a decision-priority perspective in optimizing adaptive interventions.
AbstractStrayhorn, J. (n.d.).Abstract~Intervention optimization as an opportunity to move toward implementability and equitability.
AbstractStrayhorn, J., & Collins, L. (n.d.).Abstract~New advances in optimizing interventions for equitability.
AbstractStrayhorn, J. (n.d.).Abstract~Optimising a digitally delivered behavioural weight loss programme: a factorial cluster randomised controlled trial.
AbstractWren, G., Koutoukidis, D., Scragg, J., Whitman, M., Hennessy, M., Joel, J., Lawton, K., Preston, G., Wang, D., Willis, L., Strayhorn, J., & Jebb, S. (n.d.).Journal title
NPJ Digital MedicineAbstract~Power calculation in 2k factorial optimization trials: An interactive web application, with investigation of robustness for binary outcome variables
AbstractStrayhorn, J., Vu, P., Zheng, R., & Dahlen, A. (n.d.).Journal title
Prevention ScienceAbstract~
Contact
jcs9972@nyu.edu
New York, NY