Extramural Glossary

The term "valid analysis" means an unbiased assessment. Such an assessment will, on average, yield the correct estimate of the difference in outcomes between two groups of subjects. Valid analysis can and should be conducted for both small and large studies. A valid analysis does not need to have a high statistical power for detecting a stated effect. The principal requirements for ensuring a valid analysis of the question of interest are:

• allocation of study participants of both sexes/genders (males and females) and from different racial/ethnic groups to the intervention and control groups by an unbiased process such as randomization,
• unbiased evaluation of the outcome(s) of study participants, and
• use of unbiased statistical analyses and proper methods of inference to estimate and compare the intervention effects among the gender and racial/ethnic groups.

In the context of the NIH/NCI peer review system, this term refers to the conduct of a review meeting with use of teleconferencing, videoconferencing, netconferencing, and/or other communication methods in order to bring together the peer reviewers and sometimes even the applicants for the discussion of one or more grant applications.