Communicating Complex Methodology Via Infographics: An MAIC Case Study

OBJECTIVES: Scientific communications often include rigorous details of the methodology utilized, because those details are central to understanding the context of an analysis’ results. However, health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) analyses are becoming increasingly complex as their audiences are becoming more diverse and non-technical. An infographic is a collection of images and data visualizations with minimal text presented in a logical manner that provides an easy-to-understand overview of a topic. Infographics communicate data in a widely accessible way. These visuals are also proven to convey information faster and more memorably. This work describes how infographics can be used to communicate complex HEOR methodology.

METHODS: An infographic describing the commonly used but often misunderstood statistical methodology of the matching-adjusted indirect comparison (MAIC) was created to illustrate the components and objective of an infographic.

RESULTS: The MAIC infographic leads the reader through a visual stepwise process to understand the concepts of selecting clinically meaningful patient characteristics for matching, balancing them between populations, generating individual weights, and then estimating reweighted outcomes. Successful infographics have a clear and intuitive organization, and those that are interactive also have elements of user control. Additionally, they are balanced with respect to the amount of graphics, text, and numeric information they contain.

CONCLUSIONS: An infographic represents an alternative strategy to engage and inform audiences when explaining complex processes to them. Utilizing this tool can help achieve the objective of communicating research to the widest possible audience.