Cause
Cause
How do you know whether your intervention had an effect.
Recent papers
Principles of Causation. Ravi Dhawan; Denys Shay. July 2024 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK606119/ From StatPearls, a medical education company. Both authors are from Harvard. This is a brief review of a few models of causation.
How to Distinguish Correlation from Causation in Orthopaedic Research. Isabella Zaniletti, Dirk R Larson, David G Lewallen, Daniel J Berry, Hilal Maradit Kremers. J Arthroplasty. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2024 Apr 1. Published in final edited form as: J Arthroplasty. 2022 Dec 5;38(4):634–637. doi: 10.1016/j.arth.2022.11.019. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10010939/
Causal Evidence and Dispositions in Medicine and Public Health. Elena Rocca, Rani Lill Anjum. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Mar 11;17(6):1813. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17061813. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7142708/ we need more than one single method to investigate health outcomes. ... How useful are the various methods available for causal inquiry? Further, how should different types of causal evidence be evaluated? This paper ... introduces a framework aimed at supporting scientists in developing appropriate methodological approaches for exploring causality.
Introduction to Causal Inference Principles. Chapter in National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Mathematical Sciences and Analytics; Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology; Committee on Assessing Causality from a Multidisciplinary Evidence Base for National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2022 Oct 14. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK588337/
Assessing causality in epidemiology: revisiting Bradford Hill to incorporate developments in causal thinking. Michal Shimonovich, Anna Pearce, Hilary Thomson, Katherine Keyes, Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi. Eur J Epidemiol. 2020 Dec 16;36(9):873–887. doi: 10.1007/s10654-020-00703-7. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8206235/
New approaches to disease causation research based on the sufficient-component cause model. Abdul Hakeem Alrawahi. J Public Health Res. 2020 Sep 4;9(3):1726. doi: 10.4081/jphr.2020.1726. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7482181/
Older: before 2020
Study design 101 http://himmelfarb.gwu.edu/tutorials/studydesign101/ brief overview of several designs (randomized control trial, cohort, case control). 2011.
Experimental Design and Some Threats to Experimental Validity: A Primer http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED499991 Skidmore, Susan. Online Submission, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southwest Educational Research Association (New Orleans, LA, Feb 6, 2008)
Research Methods Knowledge Base, chapter on design http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/design.htm last updated in 2006.
Allpsych on line texts http://allpsych.com/onlinetexts.html the research methods text http://allpsych.com/researchmethods/ is mainly about design, see chapters 5 and 6 especially. Also has an on line text on stats.
When to Use a Randomized Controlled Trial and When Not to http://meaningfulevidence.com/publications April 2013, from Dr. Bernadette Wright, Meaningful Evidence. This paper is also available as pdf on her resource page.
Quasi-Experimental Evaluation http://www.childtrends.org/?publications=quasi-experimental-evaluations Kristin Anderson Moore, Ph.D. 2008.
Research Design Lessons http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/wuenschk/DesignLessons.htm lectures in word. Dr. Karl Wuensch, last revised 2016
Anol Bhattacherjee Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/oa_textbooks/3/ from 2012. On line text book, complete book. Chapters 5 and 10 are about research design, but other chapters are useful too.
How Random Must Random Assignment Be in Random Assignment Experiments? http://www.srdc.org/publications/How-Random-Must-Random-Assignment-Be-in-Random-Assignment-Experiments-details.aspx by Paul Gustafson, 2003, "This technical paper reviews options for different approaches to randomization used in experimental studies that measure program impacts"
Quasi-Experimental Design and Methods https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/753/ Howard White; Shagun Sabarwal, 2014.
Also see their methodological briefs https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/series/23/
The Core Analytics of Randomized Experiments for Social Research, by Howard S. Bloom, 2006. http://www.mdrc.org/publication/core-analytics-randomized-experiments-social-research
Tom Knapp's books, articles http://www.statlit.org/Knapp.htm on various statistical topics, including percentages, statistical testing, reliability. One book, Quantitative Research Methods (2016) explains some aspects of design. Some of these books are also available here http://www.tomswebpage.net/
Research Design http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-modules/ProgramEvaluation/ProgramEvaluation7.html This is in an evaluation module, from Lynsie Ranker, William DeJong, Rob Schadt, Boston University School of Public Health. 2015.
Causation in epidemiology. M Parascandola, D Weed. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2001 Dec;55(12):905–912. doi: 10.1136/jech.55.12.905. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1731812/
Threats to Validity
Internal and External Validity http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-modules/ProgramEvaluation/ProgramEvaluation6.html This is in an evaluation module, from Lynsie Ranker, William DeJong, Rob Schadt, Boston University School of Public Health. 2015.
Basic Threats to Internal Validity http://web.pdx.edu/~newsomj/da1/default.htm Jason T. Newsom PhD, Spring 2013. (Also mentions, briefly, self selection bias)
Internal Validity http://www.pt.armstrong.edu/wright/hlpr/text/3.7.intval.htm Basics of Research for the Health Professions. Linda L. Wright & David A. Lake, includes a short description of selection bias. Not sure of the date.
What researchers mean by... validity and reliability. http://www.iwh.on.ca/wrmb/validity-and-reliability from Institute for Work and Health. 2016.
Threat to validity http://psych.athabascau.ca/html/Validity/ overview of threats to validity. See part 1. Dr. David Polson, last modified 2016
Nursing Resources: Threats to Validity of Research Designs http://researchguides.ebling.library.wisc.edu/c.php?g=293229&p=1953398 nice overview. Also see the page on types of designs http://researchguides.ebling.library.wisc.edu/c.php?g=293229&p=1953448
The Threats to Validity page above says they got information from this page http://www.creative-wisdom.com/teaching/WBI/threat.shtml Threats to Validity, Chong-ho Yu, Associate Professor of Psychology at Azusa Pacific University. 2018.
Selection Bias
What researchers mean by... selection bias http://www.iwh.on.ca/wrmb/selection-bias At Work, Issue 76, Spring 2014: Institute for Work & Health, Toronto
Avoiding Bias in Observational Studies. Part 8 in a Series of Articles on Evaluation of Scientific Publications.
Gaël P Hammer, Jean-Baptist du Prel, Maria Blettner
Controlling for Program Participation Self-Selection Bias. Shawn Bodmann, et al. https://www.iepec.org/conf-docs/conf-by-year/2013-Chicago/112.pdf International Energy Program Evaluation Conference, Chicago, 2013. An example of using propensity scores to try to account for self selection bias. 2013 conference here https://www.iepec.org/?page_id=8932
Soumerai SB, Starr D, Majumdar SR. How Do You Know Which Health Care Effectiveness Research You Can Trust? A Guide to Study Design for the Perplexed. Prev Chronic Dis 2015;12:150187. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd12.150187 or https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/15_0187.htm
Boston University School of Public Health module on bias http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/EP/EP713_Bias/ unclear who the author is. From 2016. Many other modules are here http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/Menu/index.html MPH on line learning modules
Last updated and reviewed 2/13/2018