Melanie L Bell, PhD

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Biostatistics Shared Resource
Biography
Melanie Bell, PhD, MS is Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health; Head of the Biostatistics and Design core, Center for Health Disparities Research; Vice-Chair of the Statistics Graduate Inter-Disciplinary Program; and adjunct professor at the University of Sydney. Her research focus is statistical methods for handling missing data in randomized trials, and the design and analysis of studies using patient reported outcomes. Dr. Bell earned her PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, MS in Mathematics from Northern Arizona University, and an AB in Mathematics from Occidental College.
Cancer Focus
Dr. Bell has worked primarily in the field of psycho-oncology, having worked with the Psycho-Oncology Co-Operative Research Group funded by Cancer Australia. She has published extensively both in methodological issues in the design and analysis of patient reported outcomes, as well as collaboratively for trials that use patient reported outcomes.
Selected Publications
Trejo, M. J., M. L. Bell, H. M. Dhillon, and J. L. Vardy, "Baseline quality of life is associated with survival among people with advanced lung cancer.", J Psychosoc Oncol, vol. 38, issue 5, pp. 635-641, 2020 Sep-Oct. PMID: 32410506
Gutenkunst, S. L., J. L. Vardy, H. M. Dhillon, and M. L. Bell, "Correlates of cognitive impairment in adult cancer survivors who have received chemotherapy and report cognitive problems.", Support Care Cancer, 2020 Jul 14. PMID: 32666213
Bell, M. L., A. L. Whitehead, and S. A. Julious, "Guidance for using pilot studies to inform the design of intervention trials with continuous outcomes.", Clin Epidemiol, vol. 10, pp. 153-157, 2018. PMCID: PMC5779280 PMID: 29403314
Johnson, S. B., P. N. Butow, M. L. Bell, K. Detering, J. M. Clayton, W. Silvester, B. E. Kiely, S. Clarke, L. Vaccaro, M. R. Stockler, et al., "A randomised controlled trial of an advance care planning intervention for patients with incurable cancer.", Br J Cancer, vol. 119, issue 10, pp. 1182-1190, 2018 11. PMCID: PMC6251033 PMID: 30369600
Bell, M. L., M. H. Fiero, H. M. Dhillon, V. J. Bray, and J. L. Vardy, "Statistical controversies in cancer research: using standardized effect size graphs to enhance interpretability of cancer-related clinical trials with patient-reported outcomes.", Ann Oncol, vol. 28, issue 8, pp. 1730-1733, 2017 Aug 01. PMCID: PMC5834129 PMID: 28327975
Bell, M. L., and D. L. Fairclough, "Practical and statistical issues in missing data for longitudinal patient-reported outcomes.", Stat Methods Med Res, vol. 23, issue 5, pp. 440-59, 2014 Oct. PMID: 23427225
Bell, M. L., M. Fiero, N. J. Horton, and C-H. Hsu, "Handling missing data in RCTs; a review of the top medical journals.", BMC Med Res Methodol, vol. 14, pp. 118, 2014 Nov 19. PMCID: PMC4247714 PMID: 25407057
Bell, M. L., and J. E. McKenzie, "Designing psycho-oncology randomised trials and cluster randomised trials: variance components and intra-cluster correlation of commonly used psychosocial measures.", Psychooncology, vol. 22, issue 8, pp. 1738-47, 2013 Aug. PMID: 23080401
Bell, M. L., M. G. Kenward, D. L. Fairclough, and N. J. Horton, "Differential dropout and bias in randomised controlled trials: when it matters and when it may not.", BMJ, vol. 346, pp. e8668, 2013 Jan 21. PMCID: PMC4688419 PMID: 23338004