Courses Details

EPID718: Analysis of Clinical Trials

  • Graduate level
  • Residential
  • Summer term(s) for residential students;
  • 1 credit hour(s) for residential students;
  • Instructor(s):
  • Offered Every July
  • Prerequisites: Intro Biostatistics and Perm. Instr.
  • Undergraduates are allowed to enroll in this course.
  • Description: Methods of analysis appropriate to various designs, such as cross-over designs, nested designs, factorial designs, and designs with repeated measures will be presented. The use of GLM techniques for analysis will also be illustrated. Topics will include estimation of survival functions, survival comparison between groups of subjects, identification of important covariates, adjustment for covariates, testing for interaction, and understanding the difference between confounding and interaction. Specific tools to be discussed include the Kaplan-Meier estimators, the log-rank (Mantel-Haenszel) statistics, and the Cox proportional hazards model. Instruction will focus on empirical use of methodologies rather than formal algebraic knowledge. Practical applications of manual and software-based analysis will illustrate specific procedures and interpretation of results. Students receive a disk with the data and analysis programs for all examples in the course. Students are advised to bring a scientific calculator.