Build your skills in observational studies & causal inference with our revamped course, Observational Studies: Modern Concepts & Analytic Methods- now including modern estimation methods (g-computation, IPW). 📅 18–22 May 2026 | 💻 Online via Zoom More details & registration 👇 tinyurl.com/4bebv8n2

Too many meta-analyses have findings equivalent to: “If you average the cost of a loaf of bread, car insurance for a year and a movie ticket, you get $752.36”

Incredibly honoured to receive the Rising Star Award at MCRI Staff Awards ✨ Thank you to my mentors, especially @margaritamb.bsky.social for championing the nomination, and to colleagues and collaborators @mcri.bsky.social who nominated me. Grateful to be part of such a supportive community 💛

Mark your diaries! The ViCBiostat Summer School returns from 13-20 Feb 2026, in Melbourne and online. Courses include causal inference, cluster randomised trials, meta-analysis and the estimand framework. Further details TBA shortly - sign up to our mailing list at www.vicbiostat.org.au #statistics

#ViCBiostat Summer School 13-20 Feb 2026 #Causal inference #Estimands in trials #Cluster randomised trials Advanced #meta-analysis In Melbs and online. More details to come. www.vicbiostat.org.au

My own TLDR for the message from this paper: statsepi.substack.com/p/sorry-what...

Dan Lewer@danlewer.bsky.social · 9mo ago

We wrote an article explaining why you shouldn't put several variables into a regression model and report which are statistically significant - even as exploratory research. bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/.... How did we do?

NEW PAPER!!! "Causal Machine Learning Methods and Use of Cross‐Fitting in Settings With High‐Dimensional Confounding" led by Susie Ellul, with Stijn Vansteelandt & John Carlin Published in Stats in Med Check it out 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #EpiSky #CausalSky

Causal Machine Learning Methods and Use of Cross‐Fitting in Settings With High‐Dimensional Confounding

Observational epidemiological studies commonly seek to estimate the causal effect of an exposure on an outcome. Adjustment for potential confounding bias in modern studies is challenging due to the p...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Awarded every two years by Australian Academy of Science, the Moran Medal honours outstanding Australian scientists in statistics & related fields. Huge congratulations to our Co-Director @margaritamb.bsky.social on this well-deserved recognition! 🎉🥳 #WomenInSTEM #ResearchExcellence

Margarita Moreno-Betancur@margaritamb.bsky.social · 10mo ago

A few weeks ago I went to Canberra to receive the Moran Medal at the lovely Shine Dome of the Australian Academy of Science (@science.org.au). It was a huge honour, and wonderful to hear talks from all corners of science and to learn about the Academy's great work supporting science - pics below!

NEW PAPER! (in press in EPIDEMIOLOGY) Have you wondered: - How to specify a target trial: as an ideal trial or something else? - What biases do target trial emulations and actual RCTs share? - How does it all relate to potential outcomes? Read here! 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2405.10026 #EpiSky #CausalSky

The ideal trial: defining causal estimands that balance relevance and feasibility in target trial emulations and actual randomized trials

Causal inference is the goal of randomized trials and many observational studies. The first step in a formal causal inference framework is to define the causal estimand, and in both types of study thi...

arxiv.org

🚨New method! So proud to see work led by @cttc101.bsky.social w/ @margaritamb.bsky.social @ghazalehd.bsky.social now available as an R package 📦 A powerful tool for estimating intervention effects via multiple mediators w/real examples to guide you! Check it out ⬇️ #epitwitter #causaltwitter #rstats

Margarita Moreno-Betancur@margaritamb.bsky.social · last yr.

1/ NEW R PACKAGE! For estimating the impact of potential interventions on multiple mediators in countering exposure effects (led by @cttc101.bsky.social) - Paper👉 tinyurl.com/ye26jsps - Package👉 tinyurl.com/yuh4kens Thread shows published examples of how the method can be used! #EpiSky #CausalSky

🚨 A MUST-READ by John Carlin and @margaritamb.bsky.social including 6 commentaries and rejoinder NOW PUBLISHED: “On the Uses and Abuses of Regression Models: A Call for Reform of Statistical Practice and Teaching”

Margarita Moreno-Betancur@margaritamb.bsky.social · last yr.

NOW PUBLISHED! Featured article + 6 Commentaries + Rejoinder: “On the Uses and Abuses of Regression Models: A Call for Reform of Statistical Practice and Teaching” with my colleague John Carlin tinyurl.com/2z2tmkhh @cebu-melbourne.bsky.social @vicbiostat.bsky.social #EpiSky #CausalSky #StatsSky

1/ NEW R PACKAGE! For estimating the impact of potential interventions on multiple mediators in countering exposure effects (led by @cttc101.bsky.social) - Paper👉 tinyurl.com/ye26jsps - Package👉 tinyurl.com/yuh4kens Thread shows published examples of how the method can be used! #EpiSky #CausalSky

📣 📣NEW PAPER providing guidance on best practice for using multiple imputation when estimating interventional mediation effects, considering missingness mechanism, multiple imputation model specification, & variance estimation #CausalSky #EpiSky Read more 👇🏽 journals.lww.com/epidem/abstr...

Handling multivariable missing data in causal mediation... : Epidemiology

miologic studies. However, guidance is lacking on best practice for using multiple imputation when estimating interventional mediation effects, specifically regarding the role of missingness mechanism...

journals.lww.com

Over the moon to have received the Moran Medal from the Australian Academy of Science!🥳 Amazing recognition, hopefully highlighting the key role of biostats & causal inference in high-quality research vimeo.com/1065735362 tinyurl.com/2m3dx2ms @cebu-melbourne.bsky.social @vicbiostat.bsky.social

Professor Margarita Moreno-Betancur - Moran Medal 2025

This is "Professor Margarita Moreno-Betancur - Moran Medal 2025" by Australian Academy of Science on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people…

vimeo.com

Thrilled to share our new preprint on causal ML for mediation analysis! We introduce causal ML estimators for interventional effects explicitly mapped to target trials assessing hypothetical interventions inducing distinct shifts in joint mediator distributions📊 📈🧪 #CausalSky #EpiSky

ArXiv Paperboy (Stat.ME+Econ.EM)@paperposterbot.bsky.social · last yr.

link 📈🤖 Causal machine learning for high-dimensional mediation analysis using interventional effects mapped to a target trial (Chen, Vansteelandt, Burgner et al) Causal mediation analysis examines causal pathways linking exposures to disease. The estimation of interventional effects, which are me

Recording of my talk @causalab.bsky.social on using m-DAGs to guide the treatment of missing data now available 👇 #EpiSky #CausalSky

CAUSALab@causalab.org · last yr.

Check out the last Methods Series talk now on YouTube: youtu.be/QuQnZ4don54?...

"Using missingness directed acyclic graphs (m-DAGs) to guide the treatment of multivariable missing data in epidemiological studies" Don't miss the next #CIIG seminar with @margaritamb.bsky.social on 7th April 2025 at *9am* BST! Register at: turing-uk.zoom.us/meeting/regi... #EpiSky #CausalSky

🎉 Our VERY FIRST newsletter is here! 📬Use the link to access it and learn more about our group and the work/activities we do: shorturl.at/bzmio @vicbiostat.bsky.social

Thrilled to have received this funding for my causal inference research program - with my amazing team we shall continue to advance methods and provide expertise in this key area for another 5 years!!! 🥳☺️ #CausalSky #EpiSky

ViCBiostat@vicbiostat.bsky.social · last yr.

Exciting Monday news with two of our brilliant researchers awarded NHMRC Investigator Grants 🎊 Congratulations Margarita Moreno-Betancur @margaritamb.bsky.social and Julie Simpson @julieasimpson50.bsky.social More: www.vicbiostat.org.au/news @mischhub.bsky.social @cebu-melbourne.bsky.social

Really happy with how this went! Our first missing data workshop completely grounded on the use of missingness DAGs (m-DAGs) to specify missingness assumptions 😀 #EpiSky #CausalSky

ViCBiostat@vicbiostat.bsky.social · last yr.

Another successful workshop from our missing data methods research group ✔️Led by Margarita Moreno-Betancur @margaritamb.bsky.social, with presenters Kate Lee, Ghazaleh Dashti @ghazalehd.bsky.social, Jiaxin Zhang, Cattram Nguyen, Melissa Middleton and Jessica Xu. Thank you to all who came along!

Our research methods and software training course timetable for 2025 is out! check it out here 👇 www.mcri.edu.au/research/res...

NEW COMMENTARY in Epidemiology on causal estimands in studies of pre-diagnostic exposures and cancer survival #EpiSkye #CausalSky journals.lww.com/epidem/citat...

Pre-diagnostic exposures and cancer survival: Can a... : Epidemiology

An abstract is unavailable. This article is available as a PDF only.

journals.lww.com

New paper!! We find that prevalent exposure designs are very common in dementia research, explain why they are ill-suited for causal inference, and show how the target trial framework helps us move beyond them. Read here👇 www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Moving beyond the prevalent exposure design for causal inference in dementia research

As randomised trials are not always feasible or practical, observational studies remain crucial for addressing many causal questions in the dementia prevention field. Through a systematic search, we f...

thelancet.com

NOW PUBLISHED! Correction to: “Canonical causal diagrams to guide the treatment of missing data in epidemiologic studies" doi.org/10.1093/aje/... Grateful to have had the opportunity to correct our paper translating missingness DAGs (m-DAGs) into epidemiological practice #CausalSky #EpiSky

Correction to: “Canonical causal diagrams to guide the treatment of missing data in epidemiologic studies”

Moreno-Betancur et al.1 report and correct here errors in their article “Canonical causal diagrams to guide the treatment of missing data in epidemiologic

doi.org

WORKSHOPS! On causal inference, missing data and SMARTs, part of the ViCBiostat Summer School (10-14 Feb, hybrid). For more details & registration visit: www.vicbiostat.org.au/short-courses #CausalSky #EpiSky

Hot off the press! 📣📣In this tutorial we illustrate available multiple imputation approaches for handling longitudinal data including when they are clustered within higher level clusters. A reproducible example with R and Stata code provided! #OpenAccess onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Multiple Imputation for Longitudinal Data: A Tutorial

Longitudinal studies are frequently used in medical research and involve collecting repeated measures on individuals over time. Observations from the same individual are invariably correlated and thu....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com