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Updated: May 22, 2026

Diagonal Method to Measure Synergy Among Any Number of Drugs
Published on: June 21, 2018
In search of synergy: strategies for combining interventions at multiple levels
Bryan J Weiner1, Megan A Lewis, Steven B Clauser
1Department of Health Policy and Management, CB 7411, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7411, USA. Bryan_Weiner@unc.edu
Abstract:
The social ecological perspective provides a compelling justification for multilevel intervention. Yet, it offers little guidance for selecting interventions that work together in complementary or synergistic ways. Using a causal modeling framework, we describe five strategies for increasing potential complementarity or synergy among interventions that operate at different levels of influence: accumulation, amplification, facilitation, cascade, and convergence. We illustrate these strategies with examples of multilevel interventions to improve the quality of cancer treatment.
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