ArticleAnnals of internal medicine2025
The Target Trial Framework for Causal Inference From Observational Data: Why and When Is It Helpful?
Article in Annals of internal medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It reports registered trial NCT07465926. Cited by 73 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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.
Associations of Early Add-On GLP-1 Receptor Agonist and SGLT2 Inhibitor Therapy With Mortality and Kidney Outcomes in Adults With Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Across Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic Stages 2-3: A Target-Trial Emulation
Pre-Diagnosis GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Use and Post-Cancer Mortality in Adults With Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes: A Target Trial Emulation
Who cites it
73 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A review of the relationship between dimensions of alcohol consumption and the burden of disease: 2026 update including Mendelian randomisation studies.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Concordance between target trial emulation and randomised controlled trials: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2026Pooled it
- Systemic medications and dementia risk: a systematic umbrella review.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Randomized Controlled Trial of Game Changers, a Social Network Intervention for HIV Prevention in Uganda.AIDS and behavior · 2026Trial
- Risk of gastrointestinal bleeding with gabapentin versus duloxetine in older adults with neuropathic pain: a target trial emulation cohort study.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Article
- Early rehabilitation initiation after aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage: evaluation of mortality and functional outcomes.European stroke journal · 2026Article
- Antidepressant adherence and breast cancer recurrence risk in women with major depressive disorder: a retrospective cohort.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2026Article
- Switching to Integrase Inhibitors and Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Treatment-Experienced People With HIV: A Sequential Target Trial Emulation in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study.Open forum infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Survival of Older Adults Choosing Dialysis or Conservative Kidney Management, Stratified by Suitability for Dialysis.Kidney medicine · 2026Article
- Translating Observational Data Into Public Health Action: Reducing Early Childhood Caries Burden Related to Socioeconomic Disparities.Community dentistry and oral epidemiology · 2026Review
- Article
- Associations of Semaglutide With Skeletal Outcomes in People With Obesity, With and Without Type 2 Diabetes: A Target Trial Emulation.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2026Article
- Effectiveness of Metformin in Preventing Colorectal Cancer Among Japanese Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: A Target Trial Emulation.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2026Article
- Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Outcomes Risk Reduction Associated With Semaglutide vs Tirzepatide: A Target Trial Emulation.JACC. Advances · 2026Article
- Long-term Pain and Function Outcomes Associated With Lumbar Spine Surgery for Chronic Low Back Pain: A Target Trial Emulation.International journal of spine surgery · 2026Article
- Angiotensin Receptor Blockers Versus Calcium Channel Blockers for First-Line Antihypertensive Therapy and Survival in Adults Aged 75 Years or Older.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2026Article
- A Call for Randomization: Bariatric Surgery and Cardiovascular Disease.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Improving the design of observational studies in orthopaedics: a practical guide to target trial emulation.International orthopaedics · 2026Review
- A Real-World Target Trial Emulation of Eteplirsen, Casimersen, and Golodirsen to Evaluate Survival Among Patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.Advances in therapy · 2026Article
- Active monitoring versus surgical excision for atypical ductal hyperplasia.Cancer prevention research (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Article
13 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
When randomized trials are not available to answer a causal question about the comparative effectiveness or safety of interventions, causal inferences are drawn using observational data. A helpful 2-step framework for causal inference from observational data is 1) specifying the protocol of the hypothetical randomized pragmatic trial that would answer the causal question of interest (the target trial), and 2) using the observational data to attempt to emulate that trial. The target trial framework can improve the quality of observational analyses by preventing some common biases. In this article, we discuss the utility and scope of applications of the framework. We clarify that target trial emulation resolves problems related to incorrect design but not those related to data limitations. We also describe some settings in which adopting this approach is advantageous to generate effect estimates that can close the gaps that randomized trials have not filled. In these settings, the target trial framework helps reduce the ambiguity of causal questions.
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
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.