Date: May 30 2023
Summary: Suggestions on creating a network study design
Keywords: #study #design #suggestion #network #observational #health #archive
Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics Collaborative, The Book of OHDSI. OHDSI, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://ohdsi.github.io/TheBookOfOhdsi/
These are some best practices found across a variety of resources that describe how to structure an observational health study.
Pre-specify elements of an observational study such as its:
Design
Parameters
Do not evolve your approach for a desired result
This can happen consciously or unconsciously
Known as p-hacking
Real world data can give the feeling of limitless opportunities
Could lead to unclear lines of inquiry
Difficult to explain
Harder to reproduce
The above avoidance suggestions does have some strong caveats however. In the context of a network study, there exists a tension between the idealized, "in theory" idea of a study design and the "in practice" study design. In practice, an idealized design may fail, not scientifically, but due to implementation details that were not foreseen. Furthermore, when considering an international audience, there could even be a serious design failure when not considering regional or country level differences.
Zelko, Jacob. Study Design Suggestions. https://jacobzelko.com/05302023184827-study-design-ohdsi. May 30 2023.