Causal inference from experiment and observation.

Zwahlen, Marcel; Salanti, Georgia (2018). Causal inference from experiment and observation. Evidence-Based Mental Health, 21(1), pp. 34-8. BMJ Publishing Group 10.1136/eb-2017-102859

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Results from well-conducted randomised controlled studies should ideally inform on the comparative merits of treatment choices for a health condition. In the absence of this, one attempts to use evidence from the impact of treatment when administered according to decisions of the physicians and the patients (observational evidence). Naïve comparisons between treatment options using observational evidence will lead to biased results. Under certain conditions, however, it is possible to obtain valid estimates of the comparative merits of different treatments from observational data. Causal inference can be conceptualised as a framework aiming to provide valid information about causal effects of treatments using observational evidence. It can be viewed as a missing data problem in which each patient has two outcomes: the observed outcome under the treatment actually received and a counterfactual (unobserved) outcome had the patient received a different treatment. Methodological developments over the last decades clarified the appropriate conditions and methods to obtain valid comparisons. This article provides an introduction to some of these methods.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Review Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Pre-clinic Human Medicine > Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM)

UniBE Contributor:

Zwahlen, Marcel, Salanti, Georgia

Subjects:

600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 360 Social problems & social services

ISSN:

1362-0347

Publisher:

BMJ Publishing Group

Language:

English

Submitter:

Tanya Karrer

Date Deposited:

09 Jan 2018 16:57

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:09

Publisher DOI:

10.1136/eb-2017-102859

PubMed ID:

29289944

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.108655

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/108655

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