Why are treatments for chronic disease and addiction so often ineffective? Statistician Susan Murphy believes traditional, generalized treatment approaches simply don’t take into account critical individual differences like patient response, risk, burden, adherence, and preference.

During an April 8 SFI Community Lecture in Santa Fe, Murphy showed how implementing a sequence of decision rules that dynamically adapt treatment to each individual’s response over time can suggest adaptive interventions that maximize treatment efficacy by avoiding over-treatment and providing increased treatment only to those who need it.

Watch her talk (April 8, 2015)

Susan Murphy is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and the H.E. Robbins Distinguished University Professor of Statistics & Professor of Psychiatry, Research Professor, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. She is also a principal investigator at the Methodology Center of Pennsylvania State University.

You can participate in SFI's 2015 Community Lectures live online by visiting SFI's YouTube page. To participate in the discussions via Twitter, follow at @SFILive.

The 2015 Community Lecture series is made possible through the generous sponsorship of Thornburg Investment Management.

For a complete listing of upcoming SFI community events, visit here.