Short Course on Strengthening Causal Inference in Behavioral Obesity Research

The identification of causal relations is fundamental to the science of intervention and prevention. Obesity is a major problem for which much progress in understanding, treatment, and prevention remains to be made.

On-line Registration: Closed
Held On: Mon 7/24/2017 - Fri 7/28/2017

Location:
The University of Alabama at Birmingham
Executive Learning Center (ELC), 6th floor
1705 University Blvd, SPHB 640
Birmingham AL 35233

Lodging Options:
Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Birmingham
808 South 20th Street
Birmingham, AL 35205
Phone: (205) 933-9000

Organizing Committee:

David Allison, Ph.D.
University of Alabama at BirminghamKevin Fontaine, Ph.D.
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Overview

The identification of causal relations is fundamental to a science of intervention and prevention. Obesity is a major problem for which much progress in understanding, treatment, and prevention remains to be made. Understanding which social and behavioral factors cause variations in adiposity and which other factors cause variations is vital to producing, evaluating, and selecting among intervention and prevention strategies as well as to understanding obesity’s root causes, requiring input from disciplines including statistics, economics, psychology, epidemiology, mathematics, philosophy, and in some cases behavioral or statistical genetics. The application of these techniques, however, does not involve routine well-known ‘cookbook’ approaches but requires understanding of underlying principles, so the investigator can tailor approaches to specific and varying situations. The nine course modules provide rigorous exposure to the key fundamental principles underlying a broad array of techniques and experience in applying those principles and techniques through guided discussion of real examples in obesity research.

We would like to thank our sponsors for their support: National Institutes of Health & Office of Energetics.

NIH Disclaimer: This material is based upon work supported by the National Institutes of Health under Grant No. (R25HL124208). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institutes of Health.