Choosing and Interpreting PROs and COAs – A Guide for Clinical Trial Statisticians

Choosing and Interpreting PROs and COAs – A Guide for Clinical Trial Statisticians

April 16, 2026 · 41 min · Episode 464

About this episode

The episode discusses the importance of patient-reported outcomes and clinical outcome assessments in clinical trials and how statisticians can effectively contribute to their development and application.

In this episode, I sit down with Rachael Lawrance to dive into a topic that has become absolutely central to clinical research: patient-centered outcomes. When I first started as a statistician, I knew these measures existed—but I didn’t really understand how they were developed, analyzed, or used in decision-making. That has changed dramatically over the years. Today, patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and the broader framework of clinical outcome assessments (COAs) play a key role in regulatory approvals, payer decisions, and how we demonstrate treatment value. Rachael brings deep expertise from her work at Adelphi Values and shares how these endpoints are developed, validated, and applied in practice. We also discuss how statisticians can contribute more effectively by understanding the science behind these measures—not just treating them as “just another scale.”

People in this episode

Hosts: Alexander Schacht, Benjamin Piske

Guest: Rachael Lawrance

Topics covered

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Adelphi Values

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