Course detail

Welcome to Components of causal inference with focus on assumptions and confounding control

Program: Epidemiology & Biostatistics

Description: You already know that establishing a causal relationship is distinct from observing an association. While individuals who receive the flu vaccine tend to have a lower mortality rate compared to those who do not, we must consider whether this lower mortality is directly attributable to the vaccine or if it arises from other distinctions between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. The concept of confounding introduces a pervasive bias when we compare groups that are not fundamentally similar. It represents a substantial challenge to drawing accurate causal conclusions from observational data. Consequently, the course's primary focus revolves around the essential task of mitigating bias and confounding in epidemiological research using various techniques.

Prerequisites: Basic training in epidemiology is a required prerequisite (e.g., the AAU course “Epidemiology – Basic principles” or similar). Basic statistics and basic programming abilities with Stata or R. All participants must bring a laptop with either Stata or R installed.

Learning objectives: This course focus on approaches for bias and confounding, their application to epidemiologic data, and the assumptions required to endow the estimates with a causal interpretation. The course introduces participants to a set of methods for confounding control with focus on survival analysis: methods that require measuring confounders and how this could be applied in perspective to the research question of interest. Specifically, the course introduces aspects of directed acyclic graphs, outcome regression, and inverse-probability weighting of marginal structural models as means for confounding control, and how this can be implemented and analysed in standard statistical software.

Organizer: Peter Brønnum Nielsen, PhD, Assoc. Prof., Department of Clinical Medicine, AAU

Lecturers: Chalotte W. Nicolajsen, Mette Søgaard, Søren Paaske Johnsen, and Peter Brønnum Nielsen

ECTS: 2.5

Date: 23., 24. & 25. November 2026 (Time: 09.00-15.30)

Place: SUND building, Aalborg University, Selma Lagerløfs Vej 249

City: Aalborg

Maximal number of participants: 25

Deadline: 2. november 2026

Important information concerning PhD courses: There is a no-show fee of DKK 3,000 for each course where the student does not show up. Cancellations are accepted no later than 2 weeks before the start of the course. Registered illness is of course an acceptable reason for not showing up on those days.
Furthermore, all courses open for registration approximately four months before start of the course. 
We cannot ensure any seats before the deadline for enrolment, all participants will be informed after the deadline, approximately 3 weeks before the start of the course. 
To attend courses at the Doctoral School in Medicine, Biomedical Science and Technology you must be enrolled as a PhD student.

For inquiries regarding registration, cancellation or waiting list, please contact the PhD administration at phdcourses@adm.aau.dk When contacting us please state the course title and course period. Thank you.