25th Anniversary Meeting

 

Pre-Conference Workshops

SPER will be offering two Pre-Conference Workshops on June 25, 2012, 3:00 - 6:00 pm. Workshops require advanced registration. Follow this link to register for a workshop.

Advanced Methods Workshop

FOLLOW THIS LINK for more information on the Methods workshop

 

Absolute Epidemiology: Developing Software Skills for Estimation of Absolute Contrasts from Regression Models in Perinatal Epidemiology

The session will be divided into three 30 minutes sections. In the first 30 minutes, we will motivate the greater use of absolute effect measures in reproductive epidemiology (e.g. risk differences, rate differences, survival time differences, number-needed-to-treat) and explain deficiencies of ratio measures for inference, practice and communication. We will show some examples to highlight limitations in current practice oriented around ratio measures, and explain the advantages of difference measures in these settings. We will also review the historical circumstances that led ratio measures of effect to be dominant in epidemiology and public health, and explain why these considerations are no longer as compelling as they once were. A major limitation, historically, has been available software for making absolute risk contrasts and obtaining valid variance estimates. This leads us, therefore, to the remaining 60 minutes, which will review software strategies for estimating these quantities. There will be 30 minutes devoted to Stata (JSK) and 30 minutes devoted to SAS (AHS), including basic regression modeling and interpretation of results, as well as extensions for additional complications such as weighted survey data, clustered data and missing data.

Jay S. Kaufman holds a doctorate in epidemiologic science from the University of Michigan. After a post-doctoral position at Loyola Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago, he was Medical Epidemiologist at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. From 1999 to 2009 he held a faculty position at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health at Chapel Hill before leaving for his current position as Canada Research Chair in Health Disparities in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University. Dr. Kaufman's work focuses on social epidemiology, analytic methodology and on a variety of health outcomes including reproductive, cardiovascular, psychiatric and infectious diseases. He is an editor at the journal "Epidemiology" and an associate editor at "American Journal of Epidemiology". With J. Michael Oakes he is the co-editor of the textbook "Methods in Social Epidemiology".

Ashley Schempf is a Health Scientist at the Maternal and Child Health Bureau whose research focuses on socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in maternal and child health and policy-relevant strategies to reduce inequality. She completed her doctoral studies at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2007 with dual training in demography and perinatal epidemiology. Prior to joining MCHB, she worked as an epidemiologist for the Hawai’i Health Department and completed an AcademyHealth Health Policy postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Health Statistics. Her research has been published in the American Journals of Epidemiology, Public Health, and Obstetrics and Gynecology.

 

An Introduction to Causal Inference Based on Instrumental Variables Analyses

In this session, we will introduce the motivations and assumptions for instrumental variables (IV) analyses. We will review basic implementation and interpretation of IV models, focusing on two-stage least squares regression, along with a brief summary of approaches to assessing the IV assumption. A major challenge in using IV models is identifying plausibly valid IVs for research questions of substantive interest. We will then discuss common potential sources of IVs, including policy changes, genetic variations, and randomized or natural experiments. We will walk through a specific example focused on estimating the health effects of a Canadian social policy providing additional income for families with young children.

Maria Glymour is a social epidemiologist, with specific interests in social determinants of health across the lifecourse. Her research draws on instrumental variables methods and other analytic approaches to distinguish causal effects from non-causal correlations in studies of social determinants of health. For example, she is involved in projects using social policy changes to estimate effects of education and income on subsequent health and "Mendelian Randomization" analyses using genetic variants as instrumental variables. She received her SD from the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2004. She completed a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars post-doctoral fellowship at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, and subsequently returned to the Harvard School of Public Health, where she is now an assistant professor.

Raluca Ionescu-Ittu is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard School of Public Health and Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University. She is interested in the use of instrumental variables and other econometric methods in pharmacoepidemiology and social epidemiology. Her current work with Dr. Maria Glymour and Dr. Jay Kaufman focuses on comparing the instrumental variable and difference-in-difference methods when the exogenous variable of interest is the implementation of a policy.

 

Perinatal Epidemiology for Clinicians
Olga Basso and Allen Wilcox

FOLLOW THIS LINK for more information on the Clinicians workshop

This workshop will present an overview of research methods in perinatal epidemiology, including recent developments that may not be familiar to clinical researchers. The aim of the workshop is to provide clinicians working in the area of reproductive and child health with concepts and principles that will facilitate critical thinking and appraisal of scientific manuscripts. Particular attention will be devoted to the heterogeneity of preterm birth and low birth weight, and the implications of this heterogeneity for clinical research. Basic knowledge of epidemiology is advisable but not required.

About the speakers:

Olga Basso is associate professor of epidemiology at McGill University (Canada). She has previously worked at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH, USA) and at the Danish Epidemiology Science Centre (Denmark). Her main interest is in reproductive epidemiology, including infertility, pregnancy, and neonatal health.  Her current research focuses on addressing the heterogeneity of complex exposures, such as preterm birth and infertility, in relation to perinatal and child health.

Allen Wilcox is a senior investigator at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH) and editor-in-chief of EPIDEMIOLOGY. His research has addressed topics ranging from fertility and early pregnancy to fetal growth and birth defects. He is the author  of “Fertility and Pregnancy: An Epidemiologic Perspective,” published by Oxford University Press in 2010. He holds an MD from the University of Michigan, a PhD in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina, and an honorary PhD from the University of Bergen (Norway).