Commentary: Should the analysis of observational data always be preceded by specifying a target experimental trial?

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

Who cites it

13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

1. Improving rheumatoid arthritis comparative effectiveness research through causal inference principles: systematic review using a target trial emulation framework.Annals of the rheumatic diseases · 2020
   Pooled it
2. Effects of deprescribing from inhaled corticosteroids in people with cystic fibrosis: protocol for a target trial emulation using the UK CF Registry.BMJ open · 2025
   Article
3. Causal inference in multi-cohort studies using the target trial framework to identify and minimize sources of bias.American journal of epidemiology · 2025
   Article
4. Racial and ethnic differences in the risk of dementia diagnosis under hypothetical blood pressure-lowering interventions: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2024
   Article
5. Causal inference in survival analysis using longitudinal observational data: Sequential trials and marginal structural models.Statistics in medicine · 2023
   Observational
6. [Comparing the effectiveness of multiple dynamic treatment strategies using target trial emulation].Pravention und Gesundheitsforderung · 2023
   Article
7. Estimating the effect of a rifampicin resistant tuberculosis diagnosis by the Xpert MTB/RIF assay on two-year mortality.PLOS global public health · 2023
   Article
8. Timing of dialysis in acute kidney injury using routinely collected data and dynamic treatment regimes.Critical care (London, England) · 2022
   Article
9. Medical statistics, Austin Bradford Hill, and a celebration of 40 years of Statistics in Medicine.Statistics in medicine · 2021
   Article
10. Probing the Pre-diagnostic Phase of Parkinson's Disease in Population-Based Studies.Frontiers in neurology · 2021
    Article
11. Defining causal mediation with a longitudinal mediator and a survival outcome.Lifetime data analysis · 2019
    Article
12. Target trial emulation: teaching epidemiology and beyond.European journal of epidemiology · 2017
    Article
13. Commentary: The formal approach to quantitative causal inference in epidemiology: misguided or misrepresented?International journal of epidemiology · 2016
    Article

Corrections and comments

• Comment on
  Using observational data to emulate a randomized trial of dynamic treatment-switching strategies: an application to antiretroviral therapy.2016

Authors and funding

1 author.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

Abstract

PubMed holds no abstract for this paper.