ArticleInternational journal of epidemiology2018
Collaborative, pooled and harmonized study designs for epidemiologic research: challenges and opportunities.
Article in International journal of epidemiology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
37 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Considerations for pooling real-world data as a comparator cohort to a single arm trial: a simulation study on assessment of heterogeneity.BMC medical research methodology · 2023Pooled it
- Life events and treatment prognosis for depression: A systematic review and individual patient data meta-analysis.Journal of affective disorders · 2022Pooled it
- Trial
- Global early-life cohorts for nutrition-neurodevelopment research including over 100 datasets representing over one million children.iScience · 2026Article
- Greenness exposure across the cancer continuum: The role of coronary heart disease.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Article
- Hearing aid effectiveness and probable dementia risk across 33 countries: A pooled analysis of seven cohorts.Cell reports. Medicine · 2026Article
- Effects of maternal arsenic exposure on birth outcomes using harmonized data across three birth cohorts.Toxicology and environmental health sciences · 2026Article
- An Introduction to Longitudinal Synthetic Cohorts for Studying the Life Course Drivers of Health Outcomes and Inequalities in Older Age.Current epidemiology reports · 2025Article
- Causal inference in multi-cohort studies using the target trial framework to identify and minimize sources of bias.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Article
- The Dietary Biomarkers Development Consortium: An Initiative for Discovery and Validation of Dietary Biomarkers for Precision Nutrition.Current developments in nutrition · 2025Article
- Harmonizing Dietary Exposure of Adult and Older Individuals: A Methodological Work of the Collaborative PROMED-COG Pooled Cohorts Study.Nutrients · 2024Article
- Overcoming Data Gaps in Life Course Epidemiology by Matching Across Cohorts.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- Approaches to protocol standardization and data harmonization in the ECHO-wide cohort study.Pediatric research · 2024Review
- Navigating data standards in public health: A brief report from a data-standards meeting.Journal of global health · 2024Article
- Extending the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort through 2030: Rationale and study protocol.PloS one · 2024Observational
- Recording of non-musculoskeletal manifestations, comorbidities and safety outcomes in European spondyloarthritis registries: a survey.Rheumatology advances in practice · 2024Article
- Opportunities for Examining Child Health Impacts of Early-Life Nutrition in the ECHO Program: Maternal and Child Dietary Intake Data from Pregnancy to Adolescence.Current developments in nutrition · 2023Article
- A harmonized analysis of five Canadian pregnancy cohort studies: exploring the characteristics and pregnancy outcomes associated with prenatal alcohol exposure.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2023Article
- Data quality considerations for evaluating COVID-19 treatments using real world data: learnings from the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C).BMC medical research methodology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Collaborative study designs (CSDs) that combine individual-level data from multiple independent contributing studies (ICSs) are becoming much more common due to their many advantages: increased statistical power through large sample sizes; increased ability to investigate effect heterogeneity due to diversity of participants; cost-efficiency through capitalizing on existing data; and ability to foster cooperative research and training of junior investigators. CSDs also present surmountable political, logistical and methodological challenges. Data harmonization may result in a reduced set of common data elements, but opportunities exist to leverage heterogeneous data across ICSs to investigate measurement error and residual confounding. Combining data from different study designs is an art, which motivates methods development. Diverse study samples, both across and within ICSs, prompt questions about the generalizability of results from CSDs. However, CSDs present unique opportunities to describe population health across person, place and time in a consistent fashion, and to explicitly generalize results to target populations of public health interest. Additional analytic challenges exist when analysing CSD data, because mechanisms by which systematic biases (e.g. information bias, confounding bias) arise may vary across ICSs, but multidisciplinary research teams are ready to tackle these challenges. CSDs are a powerful tool that, when properly harnessed, permits research that was not previously possible.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.