On 17th July Dr Zahid Asghar gave a seminar on “Self-controlled case series methodology”.
Epidemiological study designs, such as cohort and case-control studies, have been widely applied in medical research. However, there are several situations, where standard epidemiological study designs fall short. For example, in the research of adverse effects of vaccines it can be difficult to identify suitable comparison groups (eg, if most of the population receives the vaccine). Likewise, studies on hospital data may not have information on the exact catchment areas and hence it is a struggle to find suitable controls for cases of a particular event.
The self-controlled case series (SCCS) method is a case only method that has the advantage of using cases only. Since the same individual acts as the control , confounding is automatically controlled for. I will discuss the SCCS methodology and it’s application, identifying key limitations and potentials biases.
Dr Zahid Asghar is the Associate Professor of Data Science , Biostatistics and Mathematical Modelling. He is the Director of the Lincoln Clinical Trials Unit and leads the Public Health, Big Data, and modelling theme within CaHRU. Supervises 5 PhD and 2 MSc Students, he is a member of the NIHR pre-doc committee as well as a senior advisor to the NIHR Research Support Services Hub.
A fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and an accredited Office of National Statistics researcher with a wide portfolio of publications and an excellent track record of funded bids.
If you were unable to join the seminar a link to a recording is below.