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Welcome to the Abstract Submission Site

General Rule for All Submissions
1. Abstracts should report original work that:
  • has not been published or accepted for publication in manuscript form prior to abstract submission.
  • has not been previously presented at a national or international scientific meeting, including an SMDM European, Asia-Pacific or North American Conference.
  • is not identical to a previously published abstract.
Note: Abstracts may be submitted that were previously accepted to a scientific meeting that was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, provided that they were not presented (online or in person) or published as a manuscript. Authors should confirm the appropriateness of submission with their institution(s) and the previous scientific meeting (which may require withdrawal). Abstracts should be revised for presentation to the medical decision making audience and to avoid self-plagiarism if both abstracts will be published online.

2. Abstracts may reflect a similar body of research to that published or presented in any of the above categories, but should include new aspects of work (i.e., findings, results, analyses, or interpretation).

Authorship Guidelines
  1. Each abstract presenter must disclose his or her financial support. This information is required for the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Continuing Medical Education program provider for the Annual SMDM Meeting. This information will not affect the scientific review of the abstract.
  2. SMDM welcomes an unlimited number of abstract submissions per person. However, a maximum of 2 abstracts will be accepted per presenter.
  3. Accepted abstracts must have at least one presenting author who registers for and attends the Annual Meeting. Author(s) are responsible for expenses associated with the submission and presentation of an abstract.
  4. Authors or co-authors from policy organizations, patient advocacy groups, and industry/pharmaceutical companies are eligible to submit abstracts.
Accepted abstracts will be published as submitted in the online version of the Society’s peer-reviewed journal, Medical Decision Making, on the SMDM website and at the Annual Meeting. Please follow the formatting guidelines and spell check your abstract. Changes to submitted abstracts will not be accepted after the submission deadline, 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, 7 June 2021. All submissions will be reviewed by the Scientific Review Committee, and notifications will be sent to presenting authors in July 2021.

Abstract Submission Categories
Abstracts may be submitted for consideration as: 1) a virtual oral presentation only, 2) an electronic poster (e-poster) only, or 3) either format.
  • "The Traditional” (i.e., virtual oral presentations) will include a 10-minute presentation with 5 minutes for questions. If selected videos of the oral presentations will be pre-recorded and must be uploaded by October 8, 2021. Presentations will be grouped into topic areas and presented in concurrent sessions. Presenters will be required to attend their scheduled concurrent oral presentation session where the pre-recorded videos will be played for a live audience with a moderated Q&A session following each presentation.
  • “The Lightning Round” (i.e., electronic posters or e-posters) will include a pre-recorded 5-minute oral presentation over a single poster slide. If selected video files with the pre-recorded e-poster presentations must be uploaded by October 8, 2021. E-poster presenters will also be required to attend a virtual poster session during the conference where their pre-recorded presentations will be played for a virtual audience with a moderated Q&A session.
  • If “either” is selected, virtual oral presentation is considered to be the preferred format.
Abstract Content Categories
Scientific abstracts are welcome in a wide range of topics relevant to medical decision making. For review and scheduling purposes, submitted abstracts will be grouped in the following categories. Authors will be required to select the appropriate category for their abstract upon submission.

Category

Relevant Topics Include:

Decision Psychology and Shared Decision Making (DEC)

Risk communication; Risk perception; Doctor-patient communication; Decision support; Decision aids; Patient empowerment; Health behaviors and education; Medical education

Applied Health Economics (AHE)

Cost analyses; Cost-effectiveness analyses; Health economics; Pharmacoeconomics

Health Services, Outcomes and Policy Research (HSOP)

Administrative database and outcomes research; Applied modeling analyses; Clinical strategies and guidelines; Comparative effectiveness research; Ethical, legal and social issues; Global health research; Health policy; Health services research; Health technology assessment

Quantitative Methods and Theoretical Developments (QMTD)

Bayesian methods and analyses; Advances in simulation and decision modeling; Model calibration/validation; Decision theory

Patient and Stakeholder Preferences and Engagement (PSPE)

Stated-preferences methods (including discrete choice experiments, conjoint analysis, best-worst scaling, contingent valuation); Qualitative, mixed methods and quantitative studies exploring the priorities and preferences of patients and other stakeholders; Patient and stakeholder engagement in research; Utility and health state valuation


Lee B. Lusted Student Prize Competition
The Lee B. Lusted Student Prize Competition recognizes the top presentations by students or trainees at the Annual Meeting and provides students and trainees an additional opportunity to share their research and receive feedback from senior researchers in the field. Each year, two awards are given in each of the five scientific areas of interest (AHE, DEC, HSOP, PSPE, QTMD). Students and trainees are required to indicate their desire to be considered for this competition when the abstract is submitted and provide the name and contact information for a sponsor who can verify and attest their candidacy as a student/trainee.

Abstracts must meet the following criteria to be eligible for the Lee B. Lusted Student Prize Competition:
  1. The student or trainee must be the first author and the presenting author.
  2. The student or trainee must have played a substantive role in the submitted abstract, including the conception and implementation of the research project.
  3. The student or trainee must have been enrolled in an educational program leading to a degree or certificate at the time the research was done. Examples of qualifying educational programs include professional school, residency, fellowship, or programs leading to degrees such as PhD, MS, MBA, MD, RN, PharmD etc. The status as a student at the time the research was done must be verified by a sponsor, such as a faculty mentor or program official. The sponsor will be contacted by the SMDM office and asked to confirm the eligibility of the abstract for the student prize competition.
  4. If accepted, the student or trainee must register for the annual meeting (see trainee registration rate, below) and present the abstract.
Note: All submitted abstracts, whether or not they are accepted as finalists in the Student Prize Competition, remain in consideration for presentation in the general scientific sessions. Abstracts accepted for the Lusted Student Prize Competition will be presented as electronic poster (or e-poster) presentations. Lusted finalists will be asked to upload a video file with an e-poster describing their research that includes a 5-minute voice-over oral presentation. A PDF of the poster and the pre-recorded presentation will be due by Friday, October 1, 2021. The Lusted finalists will also be required to attend a virtual poster session during the conference where their pre-recorded presentations will be played for a virtual audience with a 5-minute interactive Q&A following each presentation. Additional presentation details will be provided upon your confirmation as a Lusted finalist.

Abstract Format
  1. Title: Should be brief and should clearly indicate the content of the paper. Abbreviations may not be used in abstract titles.
  2. Authors: Enter authors' names and institutional affiliations in separate fields. If an author does not have an institutional affiliation, indicate their city, state/province, and country. Omit titles, degree, institutional appointments, street names, and postal codes. If you have a Twitter handle, please indicate it in your author profile during the “Authors” step of the submission process. Author twitter handles will be posted in the online and printed programs to allow meeting attendees to tweet about your presentation during the meeting.
  3. Length: 375 word maximum, excluding title and author information.
  4. Organization of the body of the abstract as follows:
    • Purpose of the study, preferably one sentence.
    • Methods used to conduct the research in sufficient detail to evaluate their appropriateness and novelty.
    • Results, stated in sufficient detail to support conclusions. It is not satisfactory to state “Results will be discussed” or “Data will be presented.”
    • Conclusions reached.
  5. Formatting:
    • Single space all text with one space between paragraphs.
    • Do not use underlining or capitalization for emphasis.
    • A simple table, graph, or figure may be included. The image will be scaled from its original size so the abstract will fit into its allotted space.
    • There is a limit to 1 image file per abstract.
    • The use of black and white for images (e.g., graphs and figures) is strongly encouraged.

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Questions? Submission Manager: Teresa Belmont -