Causal inferences and real-world evidence: A comparative effectiveness evaluation of abiraterone acetate against enzalutamide.

Regulatory authorities are recognizing the need for real-world evidence (RWE) as a complement to randomized controlled trials in the approval of drugs. However, RWE needs to be fit for regulatory purposes. There is an ongoing discussion regarding whether pre-publication of a protocol on appropriate repositories, e.

Model misspecification and bias for inverse probability weighting estimators of average causal effects.

Commonly used semiparametric estimators of causal effects specify parametric models for the propensity score (PS) and the conditional outcome. An example is an augmented inverse probability weighting (IPW) estimator, frequently referred to as a doubly robust estimator, because it is consistent if at least one of the two models is correctly specified. However, in many observational studies, the role of the parametric models is often not to provide a representation of the data-generating process but rather to facilitate the adjustment for confounding, making the assumption of at least one true model unlikely to hold.

School starting age, maternal age at birth, and child outcomes.

This paper analyses the effects of maternal age at birth on children's short and long-term outcomes using Finnish register data. We exploit a school starting age rule for identification. Mothers who are born after the school entry cut-off give birth at higher age, but total fertility and earnings are unaffected.

Abortion laws and women's health.

We examine the impact of progressive and regressive abortion legislation on women's health in Mexico. Following a 2007 reform in the Federal District of Mexico which decriminalised and subsidised early-term elective abortion, multiple other Mexican states increased sanctions on illegal abortion. We observe that the original legalisation resulted in a sharp decline in maternal morbidity, particularly morbidity due to haemorrhage early in pregnancy.

The Impact of CBT on Sick Leave and Health.

This article analyses the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for individuals with mild or moderate mental illness. We study the effects on sick leave, health care consumption, and drug prescriptions. We find that CBT improved health and prevented sick leave for individuals who were not on sick leave when treatment was initiated but had no effect for individuals who were on sick leave when the treatment was initiated.

Double Trouble: The Burden of Child-rearing and Working on Maternal Mortality.

We document increased old-age mortality rates among Swedish mothers of twins compared with mothers of singletons, using administrative data on mortality for 1990-2010. We argue that twins are an unplanned shock to fertility in the cohorts of older women considered. Deaths due to lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and heart attacks-all of which are associated with stress during the life course-are significantly increased.

Doubly robust conditional logistic regression.

Epidemiologic research often aims to estimate the association between a binary exposure and a binary outcome, while adjusting for a set of covariates (eg, confounders). When data are clustered, as in, for instance, matched case-control studies and co-twin-control studies, it is common to use conditional logistic regression. In this model, all cluster-constant covariates are absorbed into a cluster-specific intercept, whereas cluster-varying covariates are adjusted for by explicitly adding these as explanatory variables to the model.

Illness-related absence among preschool children: Insights from a health intervention in Swedish preschools.

We evaluate the effect of a preschool health intervention aimed at reducing infections through improved hygiene practices and training of the staff. The large-scale design enables us to study heterogeneous effects with respect to several child and preschool characteristics that are related to the level of illness-related absence. We find no reduction, on average, in children's illness-related absence.

Mortality and the business cycle: Evidence from individual and aggregated data.

There has been much interest recently in the relationship between economic conditions and mortality, with some studies showing that mortality is pro-cyclical, while others find the opposite. Some suggest that the aggregation level of analysis (e.g.

Does privatisation of vocational rehabilitation improve labour market opportunities? Evidence from a field experiment in Sweden.

This paper analyses if privatisation of vocational rehabilitation can improve labour market opportunities for individuals on long-term sickness absence. We use a field experiment performed by the Public Employment Service and the Social Insurance Agency in Sweden during 2008-2010, in which over 4000 participants were randomly offered private and public rehabilitation. We find no differences in employment rates following rehabilitation between individuals who received rehabilitation by private and public providers.

Alcohol-related morbidity and mortality following involuntary job loss: evidence from Swedish register data.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the association between involuntary job loss and alcohol-attributable morbidity and mortality.

Method: Swedish linked employee-employer data were used to identify all establishment closures during 1990-1999, as well as the employees who were laid off and a comparison group. These data were merged with information on alcohol-attributable deaths and hospital admissions from the Causes of Death Register and the National Patient Register.