Observational Studies in Action

Published

2024-04-02

This page houses information about Observational Studies in Action (OSIA) work for the course.

The Assignment

  1. You will be responsible for presenting the methods and results of an observational study from the literature that uses propensity score methods. We call this role the “first reader”.
  2. You will also serve as “second reader” from one of the studies selected by your colleagues.

What makes an appropriate study?

An appropriate study will

  1. use (or at least primarily use) propensity score methods we will discuss in class (hence the need for Dr. Love’s pre-approval)
  2. be a fully published manuscript, not a work in progress
  3. be published since 2010 in a venue where a PDF file of the study itself and any appendix materials can be shared with the class (so journals that are available to all CWRU affiliates are preferable). Dr. Love encourages you to look for studies published since 2018.
  4. not be one that you or your immediate supervisor have been involved in, and not be one that I have been involved in, in any capacity.

Claiming a Study

Everyone will present a different study. To submit a study for approval, send a PDF of the study itself along with any appendix materials to Dr. Love in an email to 500-help at case dot edu entitled “OSIA proposal” and include a brief (100 words is sufficient, in the body of your email) description of why this particular study is of interest to you.

Please be sure to specify that you meet each of the four standards listed above.

  • Do not give Dr. Love a choice between two (or more) studies. Pick the one you want to do, and submit that. If you select a study that is unsuitable, Dr. Love will let you know as soon as he can, so you can quickly submit an alternative.
  • If you select an acceptable study and you are the first to “claim” it, it’s yours. Once a study is claimed, Dr. Love will post it to the OSIA claims page. If you select a study that someone else has beaten you to, you will have to submit an alternative.

All claims must be made by the deadline posted on the Course Calendar.

In-Class vs. Recorded Presentations

  • Before Class 06, Dr. Love will select which 9 presentations will be done “live” (3 in each “set” of OSIA talks, scheduled for Classes 9-11, as indicated on the Calendar. If your study is not selected in this way, you will instead submit a video recording of your presentation.

Your Presentation as First Reader

You will give a 12 minute presentation to the rest of the class summarizing the background, methods and key results of the study.

  • I suggest you plan on spending at least half of the time discussing the statistical and design considerations.
  • I strongly encourage you to provide useful graphs (created by you or by the original authors) to summarize key findings.
  • You will not have time to give more than a cursory explanation of the background of the study. Be aware that there are people in the room (like me) who have no formal clinical training.

I encourage you to think hard about what might be most useful to us in this context.

Second Reader

For each OSIA study, a “second reader” will be assigned once all studies are established (so that everyone does this job once.)

  • The “second reader” for each study will provide 3-4 minutes of commentary on the study after the first reader’s presentation. You are expected to present 2-4 slides as second reader.
  • You’ll follow a first reader who is summarizing the whole paper. So you absolutely should not (as second reader) be providing a comprehensive summary of the entire paper.

What you should do instead as second reader (regardless of whether you do so live or via recording) are the following things:

  1. Comment on the statistical elements of the paper you felt were either especially useful or especially confusing. It’s very helpful to be specific about anything you wish was in the paper that was not

  2. React to the presentation of the first reader (whose slides will be available on our Shared Drive at 1 PM Wednesday for live presentations, and the week before your work is due for the videos), in particular, amplifying anything they have in their slides that you want to emphasize, and, perhaps, addressing any questions they pose.

  3. Finally, be sure to leave us with your key “take away message” for the paper, in light of your review.

You could also (especially if you have specialized knowledge of the topic) provide a little additional motivation for the choices made by the researchers, as needed. But keep it to no more than 4 slides, not including a title slide with your name, an indication that you’re the second reader and the paper’s details on it.

Presentation Submission Details (for the “In Class” Talks)

for the First Reader

Submit final versions of the slides for your class presentation (18 slides should be a reasonable maximum) to our Shared Google Drive by 1 PM on the day before your presentation. The file name should include your name.

  • This will allow Dr. Love, the second reader for your article, and anyone else in the class to review your slides in advance.

for the Second Reader

Submit final versions of your 2-4 slides for your presentation to our Shared Google Drive by 7:30 AM on the day of your presentation. Be sure the file name includes your name. We expect you to have reviewed the slides prepared by the First Reader (posted the day before) in preparing your materials.

Audience Role

For each OSIA study presented in class, everyone will read the abstracts in advance, so that we can have some understanding of what’s involved and contribute to the discussion. PDFs of the papers will be posted to the Claims page as they are approved by Dr. Love, and the Shared Google Drive will eventually contain these PDFs as well as slides for all of the in-class presentations.

Presentation Submission Details (for Recorded Talks)

for the First Reader

Submit an .mp4 video recording (not to exceed 12 minutes) and the slides for your presentation to our Shared Google Drive by the deadline on the Course Calendar. The file name for each should include your name.

  • This will allow Dr. Love, the second reader of your article, and anyone else in the class to review your materials.

for the Second Reader

Submit an .mp4 video recording (not to exceed 3 minutes) of your presentation and your slides to our Shared Google Drive by the deadline on the Course Calendar. Again, your file names should include your name.

We expect you to have reviewed the slides prepared by the First Reader (which will be posted the previous week) in preparing your materials.

NEW! Reviewing Recordings of OSIA Talks

By Wednesday May 1 at 12 noon, I would like each of you to review two sets of OSIA recorded presentations (a set involves a first reader and a second reader so you would watch a total of 4 videos: 2 from a first reader, and 2 from their associated second reader), and write a paragraph (minimum of 1000 characters) to each reader-team (so two such paragraphs in total - you’ll fill out the form twice) discussing

  • the most important thing(s) you got from the presentation, and
  • the most important thing(s) you’d like to see the readers do to improve their presentation, and
  • the best part of each person’s presentation (assuming you have the space.)

Please feel encouraged to write about each of the two readers, and to refer to them by their names in your comments.

Here is the plan:

Your Name Review Set A Then Review Set B
Sara Alqahtani 1st reader: Lent, 2nd reader: Orsino 1st reader: Justin, 2nd reader: John
Naji Ayyash 1st reader: Sara, 2nd reader: Morgan 1st reader: Aman, 2nd reader: Seth
John Barron 1st reader: Sam, 2nd reader: Justin 1st reader: Miza, 2nd reader: Karlo
Seth Bauer 1st reader: Jesse, 2nd reader: Naji 1st reader: Lydia, 2nd reader: Hala
Chris Benson 1st reader: Ava, 2nd reader: Sriram 1st reader: Marie, 2nd reader: Sam
Jesse Chen 1st reader: Marie, 2nd reader: Sam 1st reader: Naji, 2nd reader: Sid
Sid Dugar See Dr. Love when you’re back –
Ava Fan 1st reader: Chris, 2nd reader: Anya 1st reader: Lent, 2nd reader: Orsino
Lent Mantshonyane 1st reader: Justin, 2nd reader: John 1st reader: Jesse, 2nd reader: Naji
Marie Masotya 1st reader: Aman, 2nd reader: Seth 1st reader: Sam, 2nd reader: Justin
Morgan McLoughlin 1st reader: Orsino, 2nd reader: Akhil 1st reader: Chris, 2nd reader: Anya
Lydia Mitchell 1st reader: Miza, 2nd reader: Karlo 1st reader: Ava, 2nd reader: Sriram
Hala Nas 1st reader: Orsino, 2nd reader: Akhil 1st reader: Jesse, 2nd reader: Naji
Anya Nazarenko 1st reader: Lydia, 2nd reader: Hala 1st reader: Orsino, 2nd reader: Akhil
Anthony Orsino 1st reader: Naji, 2nd reader: Sid 1st reader: Chris, 2nd reader: Anya
Aman Pande 1st reader: Lent, 2nd reader: Orsino 1st reader: Justin, 2nd reader: John
Justin Robinson 1st reader: Sara, 2nd reader: Morgan 1st reader: Aman, 2nd reader: Seth
Sam Rodgers-Melnick 1st reader: Ava, 2nd reader: Sriram 1st reader: Naji, 2nd reader: Sid
Miza Salim Hammoud 1st reader: Jesse, 2nd reader: Naji 1st reader: Lydia, 2nd reader: Hala
Akhil SG 1st reader: Chris, 2nd reader: Anya 1st reader: Sara, 2nd reader: Morgan
Sriram Satyavolu 1st reader: Sam, 2nd reader: Justin 1st reader: Miza, 2nd reader: Karlo
Karlo Toljan 1st reader: Marie, 2nd reader: Sam 1st reader: Sara, 2nd reader: Morgan