Illustrating potential effects of alternate control populations on real-world evidence-based statistical analyses.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Case-control study designs are commonly used in retrospective analyses of real-world evidence (RWE). Due to the increasingly wide availability of RWE, it can be difficult to determine whether findings are robust or the result of testing multiple hypotheses.

Materials and methods

We investigate the potential effects of modifying cohort definitions in a case-control association study between depression and type 2 diabetes mellitus. We used a large (>75 million individuals) de-identified administrative claims database to observe the effects of minor changes to the requirements of glucose and hemoglobin A1c tests in the control group.

Results

We found that small permutations to the criteria used to define the control population result in significant shifts in bo

SUBMITTER: Huang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8206406 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature