Section outline

  • Lecture: Person-time and Bias 

    Fixed vs. open cohorts; the dynamic allocation of person-time in longitudinal cohorts; patient or survivor cohorts; particular bias issues discussed in the setting of patient cohorts (including selection bias, immortal-person time bias, measurement error bias, confounding by indication, and residual confounding); and how emulation of a target trial may help avoid some of these biases.

    Faculty: June Chan

    View Parts 1-3 of Person-time and Bias lecture BEFORE coming to class on Feb 17, 2022.


    • Required Reading (please read PRIOR to watching the lectures):

      Chapter 7, Rothman, Greenland, & Lash 3rd Edition

    • Recommended Reading:

      • Hernán MA et al, Specifying a target trial prevents immortal time bias and other self-inflicted injuries in observational analyses J Clin Epid, 2016; mainly Parts 1-3.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27237061

      Optional Reading:

      Emilsson L, García-Albéniz X, Logan RW, Caniglia EC, Kalager M, Hernán MA. Examining Bias in Studies of Statin Treatment and Survival in Patients With Cancer. JAMA Oncol. 2018, PubMed PMID: 28822996. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28822996 



    • SurvivalAnalysis LEC 2016_OPTIONAL primer on Survival Analysis File

      For those interested in a bit more background information on survival analysis, please see this chapter written by Dr. McCulloch for the UCSF medical students, in 2016. We are sharing this supplemental information with his permission. Please note there may be internal references in this chapter to other texts from that course, which are not relevant for EPI207. (citation: Ch. 65 of the UCSF SOM Mechanisms, Methods, and Malignancy syllabus, 2016, copyright UC Regents)

      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only

    • Recorded Lectures (please watch PRIOR to class):

      Access restricted to registered students

    • Session Slides:

    • PT Bias Part 1 OpenFix Coh and Calcs EPI207_slides_no audio File
      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only
    • PT Bias Part 2 PT EPI207_slides no audio File
      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only
    • PT Bias Part 3 SurvCoh Conf EPI207 no audio File
      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only
    • PT Bias Part 4 Sel Bias ImmPT W22 with InClass QUES ONLY File
      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only
      Uploaded 02/17/22, 11:26
    • W22 PT Bias All DECKS combined with Answ File
      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only
      Uploaded 02/17/22, 11:27
    • PT and Bias W22 InClass Exercise Ques with ANSWERS File
      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only
      Uploaded 02/17/22, 11:28

    • Session Audio/Video Recording (Access restricted to registered students):

    • Class Recording - Week 7 - Part 1 Media Resource
      Not available unless: You belong to a group in Registered Students Only

    • Assignment:

      Due Thursday, February 24, 2022 at the beginning of lecture

    • HW PT Bias Ques to Post W22 File
      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only
      Uploaded 02/17/22, 11:29

    • Choe, K.S., et al, Aspirin use and the risk of prostate cancer mortality in men treated with prostatectomy or radiotherapy. 2012, Journal of Clinical Oncology, 30(28), pp.3540-3544.


      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only
    • Homework #6 Submission Assignment

    • Assignment Answer Key (access restricted to registered students):

    • W22 PT Bias KEY to post File
      Not available unless: You belong to Registered Students Only
      Uploaded 02/24/22, 09:45