ArticleAnnals of internal medicine2025
The Target Trial Framework for Causal Inference From Observational Data: Why and When Is It Helpful?
Article in Annals of internal medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It reports registered trial NCT07465926. Cited by 98 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
Associations of Early Add-On GLP-1 Receptor Agonist and SGLT2 Inhibitor Therapy With Mortality and Kidney Outcomes in Adults With Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Across Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic Stages 2-3: A Target-Trial Emulation
Pre-Diagnosis GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Use and Post-Cancer Mortality in Adults With Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes: A Target Trial Emulation
Who cites it
98 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A review of the relationship between dimensions of alcohol consumption and the burden of disease: 2026 update including Mendelian randomisation studies.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Concordance between target trial emulation and randomised controlled trials: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2026Pooled it
- Systemic medications and dementia risk: a systematic umbrella review.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Associations Between Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists (GLP-1RAs) and Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Cancer control : journal of the Moffitt Cancer CenterPooled it
- Randomized Controlled Trial of Game Changers, a Social Network Intervention for HIV Prevention in Uganda.AIDS and behavior · 2026Trial
- Cardiorenal Mortality and Safety Outcomes of GLP-1 Receptor Agonists in Type 2 Diabetes With BMI Below 27 kg/mDiabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2026Article
- Bridging Randomized Trial Efficacy and Real-World Effectiveness in Multiple Myeloma: Integrating Clinical Trials and Real-World Evidence for Individualized Care.European journal of haematology · 2026Review
- From emulation to implementation: next steps for big data research in psychiatry.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2026Article
- Continuous Glucose Monitoring and Long-Term Glycemic and Kidney Outcomes.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Active Monitoring versus Surgical Excision for Atypical Ductal Hyperplasia.Cancer prevention research (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Observational
- Development and Validation of a Computational Histology Artificial Intelligence-Powered Predictive Biomarker for Selection of Chemotherapy in Advanced Pancreatic Cancer.Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology · 2026Article
- Puberty suppression and sexual well-being in transgender and gender-diverse individuals: evidence- and experience-based counselling and future research directions.Nature reviews. Urology · 2026Review
- GLP-1 RA Plus SGLT2i Versus Monotherapy in MASLD and Type 2 Diabetes: Three Pairwise Target Trial Emulations.Journal of gastroenterology and hepatology · 2026Article
- A Real-World Target Trial Emulation of Eteplirsen, Casimersen, and Golodirsen to Evaluate Survival Among Patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.Advances in therapy · 2026Article
- Defining the Therapeutic Ceiling of Endovascular Thrombectomy in Large-Core Stroke: Beyond the Limits of ASPECTS.Stroke · 2026Article
- Target trial emulation: A practical framework for credible real-world evidence of healthcare interventions.Chinese medical journal · 2026Article
- Time-varying exposure and incomplete target-trial emulation in the dose-response study of early mobilization after cardiac surgery: a methodological commentary.Journal of intensive care · 2026Article
- Unlocking the potential of light-intensity physical activity for public health: a call to action for research.British journal of sports medicine · 2026Article
- Risk of gastrointestinal bleeding with gabapentin versus duloxetine in older adults with neuropathic pain: a target trial emulation cohort study.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Article
- Early rehabilitation initiation after aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage: evaluation of mortality and functional outcomes.European stroke journal · 2026Article
38 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
When randomized trials are not available to answer a causal question about the comparative effectiveness or safety of interventions, causal inferences are drawn using observational data. A helpful 2-step framework for causal inference from observational data is 1) specifying the protocol of the hypothetical randomized pragmatic trial that would answer the causal question of interest (the target trial), and 2) using the observational data to attempt to emulate that trial. The target trial framework can improve the quality of observational analyses by preventing some common biases. In this article, we discuss the utility and scope of applications of the framework. We clarify that target trial emulation resolves problems related to incorrect design but not those related to data limitations. We also describe some settings in which adopting this approach is advantageous to generate effect estimates that can close the gaps that randomized trials have not filled. In these settings, the target trial framework helps reduce the ambiguity of causal questions.
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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.