Hi DCR - I hope you are not tiring of my superlatives, but Week 5 has what I think is the most conceptually interesting material of the course. Confounding, in particular, is a core concept for epidemiology and clinical research that is critical to understand, especially if you are doing an observational study where the goal is to make causal inferences. I love teaching about this topic, so I created a lecture and recorded it a couple of years ago; but we ALSO have a recorded lecture from Deborah Grady, a great clinical researcher at UCSF (one of the book authors) who presents a classic example of confounding that is very much worth watching. I encourage you to watch both :).
The homework this week will give you practice thinking about how to enhance causal inference for your own study. The homework is different depending on what kind of study design you are focusing on; the directions will explain.
Apologies, I once again need to move my Office Hours from our usual Friday time to Monday at 2:10-3:00pm. I've made the change in the syllabus and will send an additional dedicated message out about this just to make sure it's seen.
In any case, hope to see you Zoom on Tuesday at 9am.