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.

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.

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, autumn 2024

All seminars are on Zoom, from 1-2 pm, unless otherwise stated. Dates are fixed, topics may change.

Wednesday, 11 September 2024

  • Causal diagrams: introduction and a case example. Causal diagrams are more frequently being used in epidemiology. We often use them in the seminar series to illustrate, discuss, and understand epidemiological issues including confounding and selection bias. In this seminar, we give an introduction to causal diagrams for those who are unfamiliar with the concept and provide a refresher and an applied example for those who have used causal diagrams in the past. We base the discussions on the paper “Using Causal Diagrams to Improve the Design and Interpretation of Medical Research” by Etminan et al. This seminar is hosted by Liisa Byberg.

Wednesday, 25 September 2024

  • Gabriel Baldanzi: Measurement errors. How can measurement errors affect my results? What is the difference between measurement error and misclassification? Can we address these issues in our analyses? Join us for this epidemiology seminar on measurement error. We will use DAGs to discuss the different types of measurement errors. Prepare by reflecting on whether your exposure, outcome, or covariates have some measurement error. We will use the article by Innes et al. to kick off the discussion. https://academic-oup-com.ezproxy.its.uu.se/epirev/article/43/1/94/6401584

Tuesday, 1 October 2024

  • In this week’s seminar, we will provide an introduction to sibling comparison designs. Elena Extrand, PhD student at the Department of Surgical Sciences, will give a brief introduction and we will together discuss the advantages of sibling comparison designs and what kinds of research questions they can help address. The following article by Obel et al. will be used to guide the discussion: Is maternal smoking during pregnancy a risk factor for hyperkinetic disorder? - Findings from a sibling design. This seminar will provide the foundation for next week’s discussion on the limitations of sibling comparison designs. Participants who want a broad overview of sibling comparison designs are also welcome to read this commentary: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21450688/.

Wednesday, 9 October 2024, on Zoom and in person at BMC, Room A1:111a.

  • Thomas Frisell, Karolinska Institutet. Sibling comparison designs are increasingly utilized in epidemiology to address confounding factors shared between siblings, such as socioeconomic or genetic influences. In this seminar, we will explore limitations and biases that can arise when using these designs. How should we interpret the results of sibling design studies? In which circumstances should we use sibling designs? Thomas Frisell will discuss these questions and more in this seminar. Please prepare by reading his article: Sibling Comparison Designs: Bias from Non-Shared Confounders and Measurement Error.

Wednesday, 30 October 2024

  • Charlson’s comorbidity index

Wednesday, 13 November 2024

  • Anna Aronsson: New measures of comorbidity

Wednesday, 27 November 2024

  • Topic to be determined

Wednesday, 11 December 2024

  • Topic to be determined

Last modified:

FOLLOW UPPSALA UNIVERSITY ON

facebook
instagram
twitter
youtube
linkedin