As a part of both the parent Look AHEAD trial and our ancillary study, participants underwent extensive data collection at baseline and 12 months after the intervention.
We also outline selection of appropriate proxy outcome measures for detecting response to treatment and collection of ancillary data, such as diet and substance use, that are critical for interpretation of results.
The Tufts University/Tufts Medical Center Institutional Review Board approved this ancillary study, and informed consent was collected prior to data collection.
Data collection for this ancillary study took place during the three years follow-up survey of the PRET trial and was conducted in May and June 2011, corresponding to three years after treatment in the single MDA arm and one year after the final round of treatment in the annual MDA arm.
The checklist's nine main categories of procedures intervention, empirical setting, research design, task category, observer, subject, data recording, data analysis, and ancillary data focus on subject identification, randomization, data collection, and data analysis.
Forest disturbance information was recorded with a Landsat time series visualization and data collection tool that incorporates ancillary high-resolution data.
One way to improve efficiencies is to combine measurement of soil properties with collection of cheaper-to-measure ancillary data.
An ASMS that allows management of both primary and ancillary data could allow standardization of data and metadata collection throughout the study, as well as retention of data provenance information and linkages.
For example, a sequence table group exists for storing genomic sequence and ancillary data; and a stock table group exists for storing stock collections.
Data collection is meagre and infrequent.
