People

Linda Collins
Linda M. Collins, PhD
NYU School of Global Public Health - Professor
NYU School of Global Public Health - Director, Intervention Optimization Initiative
Education
PhD, Quantitative Psychology, University of Southern California
BA, Psychology, University of Connecticut
Research Interests
HIV, Multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), Experimental design, Research methods, Substance use, Prevention, Intervention science, Cancer prevention and control
BIO
Linda Collins’s interests are focused on development, dissemination, and application of the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), an engineering-inspired methodological framework for optimizing and evaluating behavioral, biobehavioral, and social-structural interventions. The objective of MOST is to improve intervention effectiveness, affordability, scalability, and efficiency, balancing these strategically to achieve intervention EASE.  Dr. Collins has collaborated on research applying MOST in a range of areas, including HIV, smoking cessation, prevention of sexually transmitted infections, and weight loss. She is also collaborating on development of methods for optimizing interventions for cost-effectiveness, and on improvement of methods for optimization of adaptive interventions.  Her research has been funded by NIDA, NIAAA, NCI, NIDDK, and NSF. Dr. Collins’s publications have appeared in journals in the behavioral science, methodology, medicine, and engineering fields.  She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Prevention Research, and the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and has been President of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology and the Society for Prevention Research.  Among the honors she has received are a Fulbright Specialist grant, the President’s Award from the Society for Prevention Research, and the 2020 Valkhov Chair from Radboud University Medical Centre in The Netherlands.
Projects
Principal Investigator, Optimized Chronic Care for Smokers: Developing and Implementing Integrated Clinical and Systems Intervention in Primary Care – Optimization Core. Active
Principal Investigator, Using MOST to Optimize an HIV Care Continuum Intervention for Vulnerable Populations. Completed
Publications

Recent

Strayhorn JC, Collins LM, Vanness DJ (2024).
A posterior expected value approach to decision-making in the multiphase optimization strategy for intervention science
Psychological Methods, 29 (4), 656-678. doi: 10.1037/met0000569.

Green SMC, Smith SG, Collins LM, Strayhorn JC (2024).
Decision-making in the multiphase optimization strategy: Applying decision analysis for intervention value efficiency to optimize an information leaflet to promote key antecedents of medication adherence
Translational Behavioral Medicine, 14 (8), 461-471. doi: 10.1093/tbm/ibae029. PMCID: PMC11282575.

Strayhorn JC, Vanness DJ, Collins LM (2024).
Optimizing interventions for equitability: Some initial ideas
Prevention Science, 25 (Suppl 3), 384-396. doi: 10.1007/s11121-024-01644-3. PMCID: PMC11239304.

Collins LM, Nahum-Shani I, Guastaferro K, Strayhorn JC, Vanness DJ, Murphy SA (2024).
Intervention optimization: A paradigm shift and its potential implications for clinical psychology
Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 20 (1), 21-47. doi: 10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-080822-051119. PMCID: PMC11245367.

Feelemyer J, Braithwaite RS, Zhou Q, Cleland CM, Manandhar-Sasaki P, Wilton L, Ritchie A, Collins LM, Gwadz MV (2024).
Empirical development of a behavioral intervention for African American/Black and Latino persons with unsuppressed HIV viral load levels: An application of the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) using cost-effectiveness as an optimization objective
AIDS and Behavior, 28 (7), 2378-2390. doi: 10.1007/s10461-024-04335-w.


Notable

Collins LM (2018).
Optimization of behavioral, biobehavioral, and biomedical interventions: The multiphase optimization strategy (MOST).
New York: Springer. ISBN: 978-3-319-72205-4.

Collins LM, Kugler KC (Eds.) (2018).
Optimization of behavioral, biobehavioral, and biomedical interventions: Advanced topics.
New York: Springer. ISBN: 978-3-319-91775-7.

Collins LM, Kugler KC, Gwadz MV (2016).
Optimization of multicomponent behavioral and biobehavioral interventions for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS
AIDS and Behavior, 20 (Suppl 1), 197-214. doi: 10.1007/s10461-015-1145-4. PMCID: PMC4715714.

Dr. Collins' Google Scholar Profile