Medical Epidemiology
Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt
Our main research concern diseases and conditions in the ageing population, including fragility fractures, cardiovascular diseases and cancer, but we are involved in other areas of epidemiological research as well.
The Medical Epidemiology research group is based at the EpiHub (map), an office and network for epidemiological research within the the Disciplinary domain of Medicine and Pharmacy at Uppsala University. This facilitates fruitful interaction with different research groups aiming to jointly build a long term foundation for advanced epidemiological research.
Seminars
Our main research concern diseases and conditions in the ageing population, including fragility fractures, cardiovascular diseases and cancer, but we are involved in other areas of epidemiological research as well. We combine traditional epidemiological methods with modern causal inference methods in observational studies and perform randomised intervention studies. Find out more about our research by browsing through our publication list below.
SIMPLER
Karl Michaëlsson, head of Medical Epidemiology, is also director for the national research infrastructure SIMPLER, Swedish Infrastructure for Medical Population-Based Life-Course and Environmental Research (simpler4health.se) and much of our research is based on the cohorts included in SIMPLER. Since the end of 2018 the infrastructure is managed by a consortium consisting of Uppsala University, Karolinska Institutet, Chalmers University of Technology and Örebro University in collaboration with the County Councils in Uppsala, Västmanland and Örebro County.
The infrastructure's mission is to provide national and international researchers with data for studies on how dietary and lifestyle factors and genetics affect our health, especially during the latter part of life. The knowledge can for example be used to develop recommendations on diet and lifestyle, develop new markers fore easier and more accurate diagnosis of chronic diseases and their precursors and to develop new individualized treatments.
Funding
The research group has received funding from the Swedish Research Council (VR), the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE), the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Swedish Cancer Society, Hjärnfonden, and ALF.
Seminars in Medical Epidemiology
The seminars are open to PhD students and post doc researchers working in the field of medical epidemiology at Uppsala University. In a friendly atmosphere we discuss around different methodological topics with the aim to gain a deeper knowledge on topics in medical epidemiology.
Seminars can be held by researchers, PhD students or invited speakers. Active participation by participants is required and discussion material will be distributed before each seminar. Seminars are most commonly held on zoom or as hybrid meetings. Because the seminars are interactive, you need a functioning headset and webcam to participate.
The scheduled seminars are shown below. For most seminars, no registration is needed. However, you do need to sign up to the email list to get the information on how to connect to the seminar. You manage your own email list subscription and unsubscription: https://lists.uu.se/sympa/subscribe/surgsci-episeminars
Approximately one week before each seminar, an email with additional information (zoom link) and reading material will be circulated via the email list.
Suggestions for topics or presentations of own epidemiology-related results or questions are encouraged and can be sent to the course leader.
The seminars are given one of the seminar series within the research training courses at the Disciplinary domain of medicine and pharmacy, Uppsala university. Active participation in 10 seminars qualifies for 1 credit (hp).
Senior researchers are welcome to join the seminars but will be asked to “keep mainly in the background” since the main focus will be to facilitate discussion amongst the PhD students.
Course leader: Liisa Byberg, professor of medical epidemiology, Medical Epidemiology, Department of Surgical Sciences, Uppsala University (liisa.byberg@uu.se)
No formal examination; credits given based on attendance. PhD students will receive 1 credit (hp) for 10 seminars attended. Do not forget to state your name, affiliation, and whether you are a PhD student, postdoc (etc.) in the zoom chat or sign the attendance list circulated at the seminar.
Scheduled seminars 2025
Many journals require authors to complete a STROBE checklist when submitting a paper based on an observational study. We will go through each item in the checklist based on the explanation and elaboration paper by Jan Vandenbroucke and colleagues for the STROBE initiative.
Strobe guidelines: Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology (STROBE): Explanation and elaboration: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040297
The seminars are suitable for PhD students at all levels of knowledge in epidemiology. If you have more experience, you are encouraged to deepen your knowledge by sharing your insights during the seminars, explaining concepts, and giving examples from your own research. As a preparation for the each seminar, all participants are strongly encouraged to read the relevant sections in the paper, including the relevant boxes, and prepare questions on topics you want to discuss or have clarified.
All seminars are on Zoom, from 1-2 pm, unless otherwise stated. Dates are fixed, topics may change.
Seminars in Medical Epidemiology September – December 2025
Wednesday 2025-09-17, 13:00-14:00
Liisa Byberg: Introduction to causal diagrams (beginner level).
Prepare for this seminar by thinking about one research question that you are investigating or will investigate in an upcoming project. Also, think about if you will explore this research question using “classical epidemiology” with one (or several) exposures and one (or more) outcomes, to see whether there might be an association or effect of the exposure on the outcome. If so, what are your exposure(s) and outcome(s)? Otherwise, this is a come as you are seminar.
Wednesday 2025-10-01, 13:00-14:00
Genevieve Allen, PhD student at the Department of Surgical Sciences. Difference-in-difference methodology. (beginner to intermediate level)
Wednesday 2025-10-15, 13:00-14:00
Liisa Byberg: Introduction to mediation analysis (beginner level but some knowledge on causal diagrams will be helpful)
Thursday 2025-11-06, 12:00-13:00
Liisa Byberg: Introduction to selection bias (beginner level but some knowledge on causal diagrams will be helpful).
Wednesday 2025-11-19, 13:00-14:00
Elena Extrand: Effects of clinical and sociodemographic factors on follow-up care attendance among cancer survivors. What are the implications of restricting to survivors? (beginner to intermediate level)
Thursday 2025-12-04, 12:00-13:00
This time, we will follow up this autumn’s topics and we’ll together discuss a paper that brings up the smoking paradox among patients with psoriasis. Prepare by reading the paper by Nguyen et al: Ann Rheum Dis. 2018 Jan;77(1):119-123. https://doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2017-211625
We will together go through the epidemiological aspects (exposure, outcome, study design, follow up, etc.) and possibly draw some causal diagrams. This seminar is suitable for all levels of epidemiological background.
Wednesday 2025-12-18, 12:00-13:00
Interactions under the hood. Jonas Höijer, statistician at the Department of Surgical Sciences, will give you a walkthrough of the statistical aspects of interactions. This is a come as you are seminar. You will benefit from knowing something about regression analyses.
Seminars in Medical Epidemiology February – June 2025
Wednesday 12 February
Items 1-3: Title and abstract; Introduction: Background, Objectives
Wednesday 26 February
Items 4-5: Methods: Study design, Setting
Wednesday 5 March:
Introduction to causal diagrams (directed acyclic graphs; DAGs) and an applied example
During this seminar, Liisa Byberg will give an introduction to causal diagrams, focusing on confounder selection. The introduction will be held at a basic level and you do not need to have prior knowledge of causal diagrams. Jessica Schubert will present an example from her research. Together, we discuss which variables should be included in the model to effectively address the study question. We will further discuss whether the final model can be used to interpret the estimates for the included covariates, other than the exposure. If you are familiar with causal diagrams and want to gain deeper knowledge about the latter part of the seminar, you can prepare by reading this commentary by Westreich and Greenland: The Table 2 Fallacy: Presenting and Interpreting Confounder and Modifier Coefficients, Am J Epidemiol 2013;177(4):292-298; https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3626058/
Wednesday 12 March
Items 6-7: Methods: Participants, Variables
Monday 24 March
Items 8-10: Methods: Data sources/measuresment, Bias, Study size
Monday 31 March
Items 11-12: Methods: Quantitative variables, Statistical methods
Wednesday 23 April
Items 13-14: Results: Participants, Descriptive data
Wednesday 7 May
Items 15-17: Results: Outcome data, Main results, Other analyses
Monday 19 May
Items 18-20: Discussion: Key results, Limitations, Interpretation
Wednesday 4 June
Items 21-22: Discussion: Generalisability; Funding