Thrilled to taken on this role! 😊 I look forward to carrying on ViCBiostat’s key aim of fostering methodological research programs that are (1) embedded in, and thus underpinning the quality of, health research, and (2) central in developing expertise and biostats leadership

ViCBiostat@vicbiostat.bsky.social · 4mo ago

ViCBiostat is thrilled to formally announce that Margarita Moreno-Betancur @margaritamb.bsky.social has been appointed as our new Chair. We extend our heartfelt thanks to John Carlin for his leadership over the past 14 years, and best wishes for his retirement! www.vicbiostat.org.au/news/margari...

Summer school starts in less than a month - make sure you secure you spot soon! Course details and links to register can be found here 👇 www.vicbiostat.org.au/short-courses

Start the year well by registering for the ViCBiostat Summer School 😊 👉 www.trybooking.com/events/landi...

ViCBiostat Summer School 2026

Welcome to the registration page for the 2026 Summer School courses. Full course descriptions can be found on our website:...

trybooking.com

Margarita Moreno-Betancur@margaritamb.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Registrations now open for the ViCBiostat Summer School - Feb 13-20, 2026 (Melbourne/online)! Features courses by local & international experts in causal inference, estimands, meta-analysis and cluster RCTs Info: www.vicbiostat.org.au/short-courses Register: www.trybooking.com/events/landi...

ViCBiostat Summer School: Register now below so you don’t miss out on e.g. Eric Tchetgen Tchetgen’s causal inference course covering a range of topics in “quasi-experimental” approaches: difference-in-differences, instrumental variables, synthetic controls etc. #EpiSky #CausalSky

Clinical Epi & Biostatistics Unit (CEBU)@cebu-melbourne.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🚨 Registrations now open! 🚨 The ViCBiostat Summer School (Feb 13–20, 2026) is a fantastic opportunity to learn from leading local & international experts in causal inference, estimands, meta-analysis, and cluster RCTs. 📍 Melbourne / Online Links below 👇

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 💛

Registrations now open for the ViCBiostat Summer School - Feb 13-20, 2026 (Melbourne/online)! Features courses by local & international experts in causal inference, estimands, meta-analysis and cluster RCTs Info: www.vicbiostat.org.au/short-courses Register: www.trybooking.com/events/landi...

ViCBiostat@vicbiostat.bsky.social · 9mo ago

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

🎯 TARGET Guideline published 🎉 TARGET is a reporting guideline for observational studies of interventions that use the target trial framework. Over 3 years the @TARGETGuideline was rigorously developed and was co-published today in @jama.com & @bmj.com doi.org/10.1001/jama.2025.13350 #episky

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

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

Rejoinder to Commentaries on: On the Uses and Abuses of Regression Models: A Call for Reform of Statistical Practice and Teaching

Click on the article title to read more.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

📢 New Commentary: We discuss how analytic choices impact interpretation of studies on socioeconomic health inequities. We review 1) descriptive analogues of causal estimands (à la Young et al) with competing events; 2) timescale choice; and 3) covariate adjustment. 👉 academic.oup.com/aje/advance-...

Invited commentary: Descriptive social epidemiology: putting the question before the methods

Abstract. In studies describing socioeconomic inequities in health outcomes, the choice of estimand and the planned analytic approach are central to the in

academic.oup.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?...

Looking forward to speaking at the CAUSALab methods seminar series next week! 👇

CAUSALab@causalab.org · last yr.

2 weeks away! @margaritamb.bsky.social (Murdoch Children's Research Institute, University of Melbourne) continues the 2025 Methods Series @ki.se. 📆 April 22, 2025 ⏰ 13.00 CEST/7.00 ET 📍 All Methods Series talks virtual Register now 👇 stats.sender.net/forms/e7JD1d... #publichealth #causalinference

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

This morning's #CIIG seminar with @margaritamb.bsky.social will be hosted from the Alan Turing Institute's 'Average Causal Effect (ACE)' room 😎 #CausalSky #EpiSky

📣 📣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

Looking forward to giving this talk! 👇😊

Peter Tennant@pwgtennant.bsky.social · last yr.

"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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

Recording of the great #WCE2024 DAG debate now available!👇 I feel compelled to say: 1. I was assigned my side - everyone knows I love DAGs, especially missingness DAGs! 2. But also, debate was NOT “are u for/against DAGs” even if Peter made it seem so - he’s a great debater! #CausalSky #EpiSky

Peter Tennant@pwgtennant.bsky.social · 2y ago

"Have directed acyclic graphs fullfilled their promise?" - the recording of my debate with @margaritamb.bsky.social at the World Congress of Epidemiology 2024 is now available on YouTube! www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG79... #EpiSky #CausalSky #WCE2025

NEW PAPER! "Causal inference in multi-cohort studies using the target trial framework to identify and minimize sources of bias" led by Marnie Downes Check it out 👇 academic.oup.com/aje/advance-... #EpiSky #CausalSky

Causal inference in multi-cohort studies using the target trial framework to identify and minimize sources of bias

Abstract. Longitudinal cohort studies, which follow a group of individuals over time, provide the opportunity to examine causal effects of complex exposure

academic.oup.com