16th EUSPR Conference and Members’ Meeting

Symposium 6B: Joys and challenges: Using pooled Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis (IPDMA) to advance our understanding of what works for whom in preventive interventions

26 Sept 2025, 08:30

1h 30m

Innere Medizin/2-403 (Virchowweg 9)

Symposium Child and Youth Wellbeing

Speakers

FRANCES GARDNER (OXFORD UNIVERSITY) Francisco Calderon (University of Oxford, UK) Liina Björg Laas Sigurðardóttir (University of Oxford)Prof. Nina Heinrichs (Dept of Psychology, Universität Bielefeld, Germany)Dr PATTY LEIJTEN (UNIVERSITY of AMSTERDAM) Sophia Backhaus

Description

Authors: Frances Gardner (Oxford University), Francisco Calderon (University of Oxford, UK), Liina Björg Laas Sigurðardóttir (University of Oxford), Nina Heinrichs (Dept of Psychology, Universität Bielefeld, Germany), Patty Leijten (University of Amsterdam), Sophia Backhaus, Ankie Menting, Bram O. De Castro, Constantina Psyllou, European Parenting Program Research Consortium, GJ Melendez Torres, Ignacia Arruabarrena, Jamie Lachman, Judy Hutchings, Maria Filomena Gaspar, Qing Han, Sophia Backhaus, Vashti Berry
Co-chair: Frances Gardner
Discussant: Nina Heinrichs

Symposium background: For many preventive interventions there is substantial knowledge about their effectiveness from RCTs. However, evidence is more limited when it comes to understanding for whom they work, partly because of limitations in traditional methods for analysing moderators. There are compelling reasons to investigate moderators: to inform appropriate targeting of interventions, to identify where programmes may need to be adapted for subgroups, and to advance personalisation. Traditionally there are two main approaches to evaluating moderators, i) analysing individual RCT data; ii) synthesising data at trial-aggregate level in meta-analyses, but each has distinct drawbacks; typically both have limited power. Our symposium focuses on a solution that solves many problems of each approach, Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis (IPDMA). We first introduce principles and advantages of IPDMA, then show 4 examples of how IPDMA can yield more powerful, precise and transparent estimates of moderator effects, addressing questions such as how moderators operate longitudinally across time; how IPDMA can help understand equity effects of interventions; and developmental change in prevention effects, plus discussant.
Methods: Presentations utilise two pooled datasets: parenting intervention RCTs conducted in i) Europe- 38 trials, 5500 families; ii) low-middle-income countries- 6 trials, 2000 families.
Paper 1: Sets the scene, providing a brief primer on principles and methods behind IPDMA.
Paper 2: Examines moderators of longitudinal trajectories of prevention effects on child maltreatment, using IPDMA from in low-middle-income countries in Europe, Asia, Africa.
Paper 3: Examines at what levels of baseline risk parenting programs are effective, using the large European IPDMA dataset.
Paper 4: Investigates whether earlier interventions are more effective than those delivered later in childhood, using the large European IPDMA.
Paper 5: Shows how IPDMA and traditional meta-analysis can together assess equity effects of parenting interventions for preventing maltreatment, using i) large European IPDMA and ii) traditional aggregate-level, global meta-analysis.
Finally, Discussant.