ArticleAmerican journal of epidemiology2021
Strengthening Health Services Research Using Target Trial Emulation: An Application to Volume-Outcomes Studies.
Article in American journal of epidemiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 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
10 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- An updated systematic review of the impact of volume of surgery and specialization in Norwood procedure.BMC pediatrics · 2026Pooled it
- Reporting of Observational Studies Explicitly Aiming to Emulate Randomized Trials: A Systematic Review.JAMA network open · 2023Pooled it
- Standardized survival probabilities and contrasts between hierarchical units in multilevel survival models.BMC medical research methodology · 2026Article
- Design and Implementation of Observational Studies Emulating a Target Trial.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Chronic Disease Management to Enhance Medication Adherence Trajectories in Long-Term Survivors of Stroke: A Population-Based Cohort Study.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2025Observational
- Early Addition of Selexipag to Double Therapy for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Estimating the impact of addressing food needs on diabetes outcomes.SSM - population health · 2024Article
- Unaddressed Sources of Bias Lead to Biased Conclusions About Sexual Orientation Change Efforts and Suicidality in Sexual Minority Individuals.Archives of sexual behavior · 2023Article
- Radiocephalic Arteriovenous Fistula Patency and Use: A Post Hoc Analysis of Multicenter Randomized Clinical Trials.Annals of surgery open : perspectives of surgical history, education, and clinical approaches · 2022Article
- Comparison of Mortality Risk With Different Surgeon and Hospital Operative Volumes Among Individuals Undergoing Pancreatectomy by Emulating Target Trials in US Medicare Beneficiaries.JAMA network open · 2022Observational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The number of operations that surgeons have previously performed is associated with their patients' outcomes. However, this association may not be causal, because previous studies have often been cross-sectional and their analyses have not considered time-varying confounding or positivity violations. In this paper, using the example of surgeons who perform coronary artery bypass grafting, we describe (hypothetical) target trials for estimation of the causal effect of the surgeons' operative volumes on patient mortality. We then demonstrate how to emulate these target trials using data from US Medicare claims and provide effect estimates. Our target trial emulations suggest that interventions on physicians' volume of coronary artery bypass grafting operations have little effect on patient mortality. The target trial framework highlights key assumptions and draws attention to areas of bias in previous observational analyses that deviated from their implicit target trials. The principles of the presented methodology may be adapted to other scenarios of substantive interest in health services research.
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Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.