The nested case-control design and analysis

The nested case-control design and analysis

Summary

Dr. Suissa draws from his extensive teaching experience to lead us through an introduction to nested case-control design and analysis.

Observational studies of drug effects using healthcare databases usually involve large cohorts of subjects with long follow-up. At times, the cohorts are huge and involve time-varying exposure and covariates, presenting formidable technical challenges in data analysis. To analyze such cohorts, the nested case-control approach has been the standard design based on sampling within the cohort. In this talk, Dr. Suissa describes various sampling schemes and the corresponding measures of association, and illustrates this approach using a study of pneumonia risk associated with inhaled corticosteroid use in a large cohort of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).