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SUMMARY:A Causal Diagram Approach to Evidence Synthesis - Ian Shrier\, Dep
 artment of Epidemiology\, Biostatistics and Occupational Health\, McGill U
 niversity\, Canada
DTSTART:20110222T143000Z
DTEND:20110222T153000Z
UID:TALK28432@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Michael Sweeting
DESCRIPTION:To help authors recognize and report bias that could lead to i
 nappropriate decisions from systematic reviews of randomized trials\, the 
 Cochrane Collaboration recently implemented a “Risk of Bias” tool. Mor
 e recently\, the Cochrane Collaboration Bias Methods group met and discuss
 ed modifications that would be necessary to identify all the additional bi
 ases present in observational studies. Although traditional epidemiology l
 ists many different types of biases\, the structural approach to bias and 
 causal diagrams suggest that only four different types of bias exist – c
 onfounding bias (failure to block bias when a common cause exists)\, colli
 der bias (conditioning on a common effect)\, information bias (measurement
  error) and over-adjustment bias (conditioning on a variable that lies wit
 hin the causal pathway\, or is a marker for a variable within the causal p
 athway). This presentation will briefly review casual diagrams\, and show 
 how they can be used to demonstrate that the current Risk of Bias tool req
 uires only a couple of minor modifications to be applicable to all study d
 esigns. Using causal diagrams requires that authors and researchers make m
 ore of their assumptions explicit\, which should improve the quality of bo
 th original research and systematic reviews.\n\nIan Shrier MD\, PhD\, Dip 
 Sport Med is an Associate Professor of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiolog
 y and Community studies\, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the
  Jewish General Hospital\, McGill University\, Montreal Canada. He has tra
 ined in medicine\, physiology and epidemiology\, and his current research 
 interests include causal inference\, methodology of systematic reviews\, a
 nd sport injury epidemiology. He has over 150 peer-reviewed publications a
 nd sits on the editorial board of four international sport medicine journa
 ls.\n
LOCATION:Large Seminar Room\, 1st Floor\, Institute of Public Health\, Uni
 versity Forvie Site\, Robinson Way\, Cambridge
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