Evidence mapPaperPMID 35445692Full record

ArticleAmerican journal of epidemiology2022

Invited Commentary: Conducting and Emulating Trials to Study Effects of Social Interventions.

L Paloma Rojas-Saunero, Jeremy A Labrecque, Sonja A Swanson

Abstract readComment
In one paragraph

Article in American journal of epidemiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Trial
  2. Article
  3. Causal Inference in Health Disparities Research.Annual review of public health · 2026
    Review
  4. Review
  5. Evaluating Effects of Multilevel Interventions on Disparity in Health and Healthcare Decisions.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2024
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

L Paloma Rojas-Saunero
Jeremy A Labrecque
Sonja A Swanson

Funding

Medical Research Council MR/T032499/1
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

All else being equal, if we had 1 causal effect we wished to estimate, we would conduct a randomized trial with a protocol that mapped onto that causal question, or we would attempt to emulate that target trial with observational data. However, studying the social determinants of health often means there are not just 1 but several causal contrasts of simultaneous interest and importance, and each of these related but distinct causal questions may have varying degrees of feasibility in conducting trials. With this in mind, we discuss challenges and opportunities that arise when conducting and emulating such trials. We describe designing trials with the simultaneous goals of estimating the intention-to-treat effect, the per-protocol effect, effects of alternative protocols or joint interventions, effects within subgroups, and effects under interference, and we describe ways to make the most of all feasible randomized trials and emulated trials using observational data. Our comments are grounded in the study results of Courtin et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2022;191(8):1444-1452).

Indexed as

CausalityHumansintention-to-treat effectper-protocol effectrandomized trialssocial epidemiologytarget trials

Identifiers

PMID35445692
PMCPMC9347019

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.