David Vock
328 posts
@docvock
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics working in causal inference, dynamic treatment regimes, personalized medicine, and semiparametric theory.
Results! In these states, this percentage of people believe they are in the Midwest. Chew on these results while we crunch the data down to the zip code level and get granular. What parts of these Midwestern states do you think will shade less Midwestern? All input welcome
RCTs are the gold standard for good reason — they provide the only good chance to have an unbiased estimate of the causal effect of an intervention. However, like all studies they have their own limitations. They are not that large, often not representative of the target population, and are also frequently in idealized settings not indicative of real-world medical care in the community. Thus, even after well run clinical trials, observational studies are needed in the real world settings to validate, supplement and complement the knowledge gained in the randomized trial. With RCT and observational studies it is not a question of “or”, it is the necessity of “and”
Moreover, observational studies has an advantage over RCTs in handling the problem of "external validity". Such studies are conducted on the target population, on large number of people, in their own natural habitat, instead of artificial experimental settings, marred by selection bias" #Bookofwhy
Folks, I have been asked to chair the departmental seminar committee at @NCSUStatistics. I would greatly appreciate your input and perspectives on the following:
Does the rollout of Facebook across college campuses in 2004-5 provide clear evidence of negative effects of social media on mental health? I wrote some comments on this now widely-cited study statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2023/08/22/the…
