Modern demographic methods in epidemiology

Longitudinal Studies Centre, St. Andrews, Scotland, 1-3 June 2010

The course will give an overview of modern demographic methods in epidemiology, including a practical training in analysis and reporting study results both in tabular and graphical form.
The practical exercises will be based on the free computer program R, for which a number of packages for epidemiology are available.
The Epi package for R will be used in this course.
Formally no prior knowledge of R is required, a short introduction is given, but please see at the bottom of this page if you are not familiar with R.

Topics covered:
- Rates, survival function:
  Connection between all basic concepts from a probability point of view.
- Multistate models, competing risks.
- Lexis diagrams and multiple timescales.
- Cox-modelling of rates.
- Splitting the follow-up.
- Poisson modelling of rates.
- Modelling multiple time scales.
- Multiple time scales and multistate models.
- Reporting rates and probabilities from models.
Lectures and computer practicals:
Bendix Carstensen, Senior Statistician, Steno Diabetes Center & Department of Biostatistics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Course program.
Overview of basic concepts in survival analysis. A compressed overview of essential quantities and their interrelations.
Computer practicals (including tentative program and an overview of basic survival concepts).
(incomplete, updated May 29, 2010)
Registration details(pdf).
Course organizer:
- Paul Boyle, Longitudinal Studies Centre, Scotland
- Christina Lamb, Longitudinal Studies Centre, Scotland
Previous courses are here.
Papers in pdf-format:
Slides in pdf-format and as 3-ups or 8-ups.
Datasets.
R-programs.
R topics:
- Installing R on your computer:
  Go to http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/cran/bin/windows/base/ and download the latest version of R and install it.
- If you are not familiar with R, you can use "A work-book introduction to basic R" by Micheal Hills:
  First go here and click on the link "readme.fst" and follow the instructions.
- Mailing list:
  A mailing list for users of R in epidemiology has been set up. Join the list and use it for getting help with your R-problems: Join here.

Last updated 29 May 2010, BxC