I presented this talk in the Symposia: “Specifying and emulating target trials to estimate causal effects of complex exposures”, at the Society for Epidemiologic Research Conference 2023, held in Portland, OR, USA.
All else being equal, if we had 1 causal effect we wished to estimate, we would conduct a randomized trial with a protocol that mapped onto that causal question, or we would attempt to emulate that target trial with observational data.
I presented this work in the session of Early identification and prevention of brain disorders at the Society for Epidemiologic Research Conference, 2020.
The work from this presentation has been published at the European Journal of Epidemiology, more information here.
Objective: Observational data can be used to attempt to emulate a target trial of statin use and estimate analogues of intention-to-treat and per protocol effects on dementia risk.
Methods: Using data from a prospective cohort study in the Netherlands, we conceptualized a sequence of “trials” in which eligible individuals ages 55–80 years were classified as statin initiators or noninitiators for every consecutive month between 1993 and 2007 and were followed until diagnosis of dementia, death, loss to follow-up, or the end of follow-up.