Data were obtained from the prospective, longitudinal, population‐based Children of Western Sweden cohort, which focused on children born in 2003. The parents answered questionnaires at six months and one, four, eight and 12 years of age. Personal identity numbers linked 3634 children to the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register (SPDR) and the National Patient Register (NPR). Read more at Parental ques

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/parental-questionnaires-provided-reliable-data-childhood-asthma-compared-national-registers - 2025-08-21

Quality in medical research has recently been criticized for being low, especially in observational research. Methodology is increasingly difficult, but collaboration between clinical researchers and biostatisticians may improve research and reporting quality. The aim of this study is to quantify the value of a biostatistician in the team of authors. Read more at Is reporting quality in medical pu

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/reporting-quality-medical-publications-associated-biostatisticians-co-authors-registered-report - 2025-08-21

This study extends TCAL by disentangling causes of death contributions. The strength of the approach is that it allows identification of mortality differences in cohorts with members still alive, as well as identification of which ages and causes of death contribute to mortality differentials between populations. Read the paper at https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/49/5/1712/5721433

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/reflection-modern-methods-cause-death-decomposition-cohort-survival-comparisons - 2025-08-21

Advances in synthetic control methods bring new opportunities to conduct rigorous research in evaluating public health interventions. However, incorporating synthetic controls in interrupted time series studies may not always nullify important threats to validity nor improve causal inference. Read the paper at https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/49/6/2010/5917161

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/can-synthetic-controls-improve-causal-inference-interrupted-time-series-evaluations-public-health - 2025-08-21

Concerns have been expressed over standards of statistical interpretation. Results with P <0.05 are often referred to as ‘significant’ which, in plain English, implies important. This leads some people directly into the misconception that this provides proof that associations are clinically relevant. Read the paper at https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/49/6/2083/5876177

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/reflection-modern-methods-statistics-education-beyond-significance-novel-plain-english - 2025-08-21

Standard errors are usually calculated based on assumptions underpinning the statistical model used in the estimation. However, there are situations in which some assumptions of the statistical model including the variance or covariance of the outcome across observations are violated, which leads to biased standard errors. Read the paper at https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/50/1/346/6044447

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/reflection-modern-methods-demystifying-robust-standard-errors-epidemiologists - 2025-08-21

The IDAG allows for a both intuitive and stringent way of illustrating interactions. It helps to distinguish between causal and non-causal mechanisms behind effect variation. Read the paper at https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/50/2/613/5998421

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/directed-acyclic-graph-interactions - 2025-08-21

Photo: Pixabay / Gerd Altmann Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are an increasingly popular approach for identifying confounding variables that require conditioning when estimating causal effects. This review examined the use of DAGs in applied health research to inform recommendations for improving their transparency and utility in future research. Read the paper at https://academic.oup.com/ije/arti

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/use-directed-acyclic-graphs-dags-identify-confounders-applied-health-research-review-and - 2025-08-21

Statistical learning methods beyond generalized linear models, such as shrinkage methods or kernel smoothing methods, are being increasingly implemented in public health research and epidemiology because they can perform better in instances with complex or high-dimensional data—settings in which traditional statistical methods fail. Read the paper at https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/50/2/685/6

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/reflection-modern-methods-good-practices-applied-statistical-learning-epidemiology - 2025-08-21

The ambition is to provide one of the first large-scale European family studies with individual data across three generations, which could deepen our knowledge about the role of family traits for chronic disease and its underlying mechanisms. Read the paper at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00695-4

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/malmo-offspring-study-mos-design-methods-and-first-results - 2025-08-21

The network will add value to participating cohorts by increasing statistical power and exposure heterogeneity, as well as facilitating cross-cohort comparisons, cross-validation and replication. Our aim is to motivate other cohorts to join the network and encourage the use of the EU Child Cohort Network by the wider research community. Read the paper at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/eu-child-cohort-networks-core-data-establishing-set-findable-accessible-interoperable-and-re-usable - 2025-08-21

Nytt stöd för mer inkluderande forskningsfinansiering Den 27 april lanserade forskningsfinansiärerna Formas, Forte, Vinnova och Energimyndigheten ett nytt, webbaserat processtöd för att nå ut bättre till sökande från en mångfald av discipliner och sektorer och även för att stärka samverkan mellan forskning och det omgivande samhället.Pressmeddelandet finns här och själva sidan på humsamverkan.se.

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/humsamverkan - 2025-08-21

From Wikimedia Commons Health workers invest major time recording register data for maternal and newborn core health indicators. Improving data quality requires standardised register designs streamlined to capture only necessary data elements. Consistent implementation processes are also needed. Read the paper at https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1288…

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/barriers-and-enablers-routine-register-data-collection-newborns-and-mothers - 2025-08-21

Photo: Pixabay / Arek Socha Mediation analysis seeks to explain the pathway(s) through which an exposure affects an outcome. Traditional, non-instrumental variable methods for mediation analysis experience a number of methodological difficulties, including bias due to confounding between an exposure, mediator and outcome and measurement error. Mendelian randomisation (MR) can be used to improve ca

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/mendelian-randomisation-mediation-analysis-current-methods-and-challenges-implementation - 2025-08-21

Photo: Pixabay / Gerd Altmann We describe a novel Bayesian pathway analysis approach, the algorithm for learning pathway structure (ALPS), which addresses key limitations in existing approaches to complex data analysis. Read the paper at https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/189/12/1610/5868707

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/bayesian-pathway-analysis-complex-interactions - 2025-08-21

The method extends an established case–control sampling principle: sample the at-risk experience of a cohort study such that the sampled exposure distribution approximates that of the cohort. It is distinct from density sampling in that the sample remains in the form of the at-risk measure, which may be continuous, such as person–time or person–distance. Read the paper at https://journals.lww.com/

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/risk-measure-sampling-case-control-studies-aggregated-data - 2025-08-21

Photo: Pixabay / Gerd Altmann We recommend careful consideration of 1) the reasons for missingness, 2) whether missingness modifies the existing relationships among observed data, and 3) the scientific context and data source, to inform the choice of the appropriate method(s) for handling partially observed confounders in MSMs. Read the paper at https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/190/4/663/59238

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/common-methods-handling-missing-data-marginal-structural-models-what-works-and-why - 2025-08-21

As a new tool, we present do-search, a recently developed algorithmic approach that can determine the identifiability of a causal effect. The approach is based on do-calculus, and it can utilize data with nontrivial missing data and selection bias mechanisms. Read the paper at https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Fulltext/2021/01000/Do_search__A_Tool_f…

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/do-search-tool-causal-inference-and-study-design-multiple-data-sources - 2025-08-21

Photo: Pixabay / geralt This systematic review demonstrates that regression discontinuity designs have been widely applied in health research and could be used more widely still. Shortcomings in study quality and reporting suggest that the potential benefits of this method have not yet been fully realized. Read the paper at https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Fulltext/2021/01000/Regression_Disconti…

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/regression-discontinuity-designs-health - 2025-08-21

Lack of representativeness may distort the associations of alcohol with CVD mortality, and may underestimate health hazards among those with cumulatively the least healthy lifestyles. Read the paper at https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Fulltext/2021/03000/Is_Cohort_Represent…

https://www.lupop.lu.se/article/cohort-representativeness-passe-poststratified-associations-lifestyle-risk-factors-mortality-uk - 2025-08-21