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miguelhernan.org
https://miguelhernan.org/ Using health data to learn what works. Making #causalinference less casual. Director, @causalab.bsky.social Professor, @hsph.harvard.edu Methods Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine @annalsofim.bsky.social
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New publication: Effect of colonoscopy screening on risks of colorectal cancer and related death: instrumental variable estimation of per-protocol effects now in the European Journal of Epidemiology ➡️ Read here: link.springer.com/article/10.1... #cancer #screening #colorectal

submitted 9 days ago • 2 comments

See you in Madrid? CAUSALab is partnering w/ @cemfi.es for the course, Causal Inference for Health and Social Scientists. 📆 Aug 25-29, 2025 Taught by @miguelhernan.org, CEMFI course introduces 2 step causal framework for experimental & non-experimental data. www.cemfi.es/programs/css...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

If you're wondering about differences between publicly-funded research in non-profit universities and privately-funded research in for-profit companies, watch this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar0z... The topic is the "de-extinction of the dire wolf", but the message applies beyond it. (Think "AI".)

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

Barbra Dickerman, @joy-shi.bsky.social, and I have a new online course for anyone who wants to learn the basics of confounding adjustment for time-fixed treatments. A must if you are considering CAUSALab's "Advanced Confounding Adjustment" course for time-varying treatments in the Summer.

submitted 60 days ago • 2 comments

Anyone interested in science in the U.S. should read this. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

submitted 84 days ago • 0 comments

Join us on Wednesday, March 5th at 1:00pm EST for the Department's seminar series with Miguel Hernan speaking on "How to make people immortal and why it is not a good idea: Improving the causal analyses of healthcare databases" ➡️ Go to event page to register: hsph.harvard.edu/epidemiology...

submitted 95 days ago • 0 comments

1/ When using observational data for #causalinference, emulating a target trial helps solve some problems... but not all problems. In a new paper, we explain why and when the #TargetTrial framework is helpful. www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/... Joint work with my colleagues @causalab.bsky.social

submitted 103 days ago • 3 comments

1/ If you were taught to test for proportional hazards, talk to your teacher. The proportional hazards assumption is implausible in most #randomized and #observational studies because the hazard ratios aren't expected to be constant during the follow-up. So "testing" is futile. But there is more 👇

submitted 118 days ago • 4 comments

1/ That "immortal time" is so frequent in survival analyses for #causalinference is fascinating. Because "immortal time" doesn't exist in the data, *we* create it when misanalyzing the data. Our new paper pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39494894/ summarizes why immortal time arises & how to prevent it.

submitted 146 days ago • 3 comments

Upgrade your #causalinference arsenal. A revision of our book "Causal Inference: What If" is available at miguelhernan.org/whatifbook Thanks to everyone who suggested improvements, reported typos, and proposed new citations and material. Enjoy the #WhatIfBook plus code and data. Also, it's free.

submitted 160 days ago • 10 comments

Does #randomization ensures balance of risk factors between groups? Consider this: In Denmark 860 individuals were randomly allocated to either intervention or control. Individuals were unaware of their allocation. No intervention took place. Mortality was higher in the intervention group (p=0.003)

submitted 187 days ago • 7 comments

It's always a good time to remember Brandolini's principle @ziobrando.bsky.social

submitted 193 days ago • 4 comments

Join us today!

submitted 215 days ago • 0 comments

Congrats to Roger Logan on his retirement! Roger has worked as a CAUSALab Senior Research Scientist @harvardchanschool.bsky.social for 23 years. He has been a valuable team member & made major contributions to #causalinference research. Wishing Roger all the best in this new chapter! #publichealth

submitted 242 days ago • 1 comment

Really enjoyed @miguelhernan.bsky.social's talk on the promises and limitations of AI for health data research at the #WCE2024! A fair and critical dose of reality that the wider health research sphere desparately needs to hear! #EpiSky

submitted 247 days ago • 1 comment

New research published in Annals of Internal Medicine challenges past scholarship on metformin. CAUSALab collaborator Yu-Han Chiu identified no increased risk for childbirth with major birth defects when compared w/ women who discontinued the drug. CNN article: www.cnn.com/2024/06/17/h...

submitted 342 days ago • 1 comment

This week I discussed methods for health technology assessment at HTAi. My main point: "Observational data (#RWD) can often be used to emulate a #TargetTrial, but we need more research to characterize questions that can only be answered by randomized trials." Let's learn the limits of #RWE.

submitted 343 days ago • 0 comments

Did you know that the LATE estimator was independently described in 1994 by Imbens & Angrist in Econometrica and Baker & Lindeman in Statistics in Medicine? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... A delightful historical overview of LATE is now available www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

submitted 355 days ago • 0 comments

With #TargetTrial emulation becoming increasingly popular, it's important to understand what it can and can't do. In this podcast I discuss how target trial emulation can improve causal inference from observational data and extend inferences from randomized trials edhub.ama-assn.org/jn-learning/...

submitted 379 days ago • 0 comments

First FEP-CAUSAL collab paper is out in AJE! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38576166/ Target trial emulation findings support aripiprazole & paliperidone as first-line therapy in first episode psychosis treatment. Led by CAUSALab researchers Alejandro Szmulewicz & @miguelhernan.bsky.social.

submitted 411 days ago • 1 comment

CAUSALab has a new collaboration with Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard! @miguelhernan.bsky.social received a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) award as a project collaborator to advance intervention design decision-making via computational framework.

submitted 438 days ago • 0 comments

Don't let the causal inference buzz fool you: Description is the foundation of science. We've described the 3-year health impact of #COVID19 in Madrid, the EU region with the highest life expectancy. If we can't describe, no causal inference can follow. academic.oup.com/ofid/article...

submitted 475 days ago • 0 comments

Have you ever been advised to state your hypothesis in your grant application? Sander Greenland and I argue that stating hypotheses is unnecessary. lnkd.in/eW4ccgae Who cares what you guess the qualitative answer is before doing the study? Just do the study. Your hypothesis is nobody's business.

submitted 513 days ago • 0 comments

"Draw your assumptions before your conclusions" 5 years ago we launched our *free* Causal Diagrams course via HarvardX and edX. Since then, 80,000 people in 180 countries have registered. Check it out if you want to learn about DAGs and SWIGs for causal inference: www.edx.org/learn/data-a...

submitted 558 days ago • 0 comments