Department of Biostatistics Seminar/Workshop Series

Prognosis and Prognostic research: what, why, and how?

Karel G.M. Moons, PhD

Professor of Clinical Epidemiology
Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Netherlands

Wednesday, September 23 10:00-11:00AM, PRB 206

Intended Audience: Persons interested in applied statistics, statistical theory, epidemiology, health services research, clinical trials methodology, statistical computing, statistical graphics, R users or potential users.

Prognostic prediction models are increasingly used in medicine. Since the introduction of ‘Evidence Based Medicine’ the number of published papers dealing with prediction models increased exponentially to over 20,000. Well known examples of prognostic prediction models are the APGAR score, APACHE score, EUROSCORE, and Framingham Risk Score. My presentation covers various questions regarding prognostic research. Why do we need prognostic research and prognostic models? How to design and conduct prognostic studies? How to develop a prognostic model? Why and how should we validate such models before being used in daily practice? What knowledge is needed before applying a prognostic model in individual patients, and what are the pros and cons of using such models?