Introduction to Target Trial Emulation for Comparative Effectiveness Research

This introductory course is for anyone wishing to understand how comparisons of the effectiveness of alternative therapies or interventions can be performed using real world data (RWD) when adopting the framework of target trial emulation (TTE). RWD are data on the everyday experiences of individuals that are collected through surveys, cohort studies, administrative and clinical. These data are observational, as opposed to experimental. Because of this, using them to address causal questions such as those of comparative effectiveness raises many concerns and difficulties. In this course we will describe the main sources of bias affecting RWD, describe how TTE can address some of them, and discuss its application in group discussions and computer practicals (in Stata and R).