Courses in Genetic Epidemiology

In many areas, medical research is shifting from single studies to large-scale research collaborations. The formation of consortia faces several methodological challenges. This course explains the differences in the design and analyses between single and multicenter studies, and provides an overview of methodological topics in the organization, design and analyses of multicenter studies. Topics include choosing between single center or multicenter study designs, how to organize, set up and maintain large-scale consortia, meta-analyses versus individual-level data-analyses of multicenter studies, advantages and limitations of multi-team consortia, potential biases in collaborative research, and retrospective versus prospective study data collection and harmonization/standardization of datasets in multicenter studies.  Examples will be drawn from different types of epidemiological research.

Objectives:

• Learn about advanced topics in organization, design and analyses of multicenter collaborative studies (consortia).
• Understand the advantages and limitations of multicenter collaborative studies.
• Understand differences between individual-level collaborative analyses and meta-analyses of published data.