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SUMMARY:Working with Epidemiologists - Nick Galwey\, GlaxoSmithKline
DTSTART:20140327T191500Z
DTEND:20140327T213000Z
UID:TALK47526@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Peter Watson
DESCRIPTION:This presentation first explores the motivation for conducting
  epidemiological research: such research ranks well below the ‘gold stan
 dard’ of randomised clinical trials in the conventional hierarchy of evi
 dence\, yet observational studies (sometimes on >100 million patients) pro
 vide valuable information that is rarely obtained from such trials.  Hence
  the problems of confounding and bias (two sides of the same coin) that be
 set observational studies are well worth addressing\, and in this presenta
 tion the statistical tools that epidemiologists use for the purpose – ad
 justment for covariates\, case-control matching etc. – are reviewed.   T
 he statistics that epidemiologists typically present are incidence and pre
 valence rates\, and their ratios between exposed and unexposed patients.  
  These statistics are interpreted in terms of the Poisson and binomial dis
 tributions\, rather than the Normal distribution used for continuous varia
 bles\, so the statistician must be familiar with the methods for fitting m
 odels using these distributions – Poisson regression with overdispersion
 \, logistic regression\, etc.   He or she also needs to be aware of the di
 fficulty of specifying confidence intervals for parameter estimates based 
 on these discontinuous\, asymmetric distributions: there is no single ‘r
 ight answer’. In the author’s experience\, epidemiologists have breath
 takingly well developed intuition for the ways in which data can mislead\,
  and what to do about it. But the majority do not habitually express their
  ideas in algebra and geometry\, and when the tasks required of them take 
 them beyond the edge of their statistical comfort zone they will welcome t
 he support of a statistician who is a fast learner and a good communicator
 .
LOCATION:Institute of Public Health\, Forvie Site\, Addenbrookes Hospital
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