Data analysis using STATA

This course is jointly organised by the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo (Uruguay), the school of medicine of Montevideo (Uruguay) and the Emerging Disease Epidemiology unit from Institut Pasteur (Paris, France).

The course will be held at the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo (Uruguay), from Monday 9^th to Friday 20th of April 2012 and will be provided in English.

Goals of the course

The course aims to build local capacity in epidemiology and to provide participants with a strong working knowledge of the main statistical techniques used in the analysis of epidemiological data using STATA - one of the foremost used statistical packages in scientific research.

Although participants are instructed in STATA, the basic analytic concepts and techniques covered in the course are applicable to the analysis of data using any statistical package.

By the end of the course, students should be able to:

- apply basic STATA commands to the proper handling of data, including importing and merging of files, generation of variables, management of dates and creation of graphs,

- properly check data for missingness, invalid values, inconsistencies and duplicates

- make univariate comparisons of binary, categorical, and continuous variables using various analytic techniques (non-parametrical and parametrical analyses), including t-tests, Mann-Withney test, ANOVA, correlation coefficients, and simple linear regression,

- conduct significance testing under commonly encountered scenarios, such as matched data or multiple comparisons (Bonferroni correction),

- properly report and interpret p-values,

- analyse data for linear trends,

- analyse and deal with data outliers,

- construct and interpret multivariate logistic regression models,

- assess confounding and interaction using regression models,

- analyse survival data using both non-parametrical and semi-parametrical analyses techniques,

Participants

The course is dedicated to people already having some knowledge of epidemiology and basic statistics (e.g. familiar with normal distributions, p-values and hypothesis testing). No knowledge of the STATA software is required, as an introduction to STATA is part of this course.

Duration and organisation of the course

The course lasts two weeks (i.e. 10 days) and is organised in three parts: 4 days dedicated to an introduction to STATA (opening and merging datasets, creating programmes, graphics, cleaning datasets…) and introduction to statistical tests; 3 days dedicated to the logistic regression analysis; 3 days dedicated to survival analysis.

The course will be based on introductory lectures (25% of the time) completed by directed computer-based exercises with professors (25% of the time).

The other 50% will be dedicated to individual practical exercises on a computer with one computer per student. Teaching assistants are available full-time throughout the course to help students in using STATA commands and performing exercises.

Every participant is requested to come with his own laptop.

STATA licences will be purchased for this course, at the end of which all participants will be given a licence.

Detailed programme

08:30 - 09:00 Registration

09:00 - 09:30 Introduction to the course – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso

09:30 - 10:30 Introduction to STATA – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Introduction to Stata – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

12:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Exploration of data files – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

15:30 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Exploration of data files – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

09:00 - 10:30 Creation of new variables – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Creation of new variables – Loíc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

12:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Merge datasets – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

15:30 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Merge datasets – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

09:00 - 10:30 Quality controls / data files cleaning – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Quality controls / data files cleaning – Loíc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

12:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Graphs – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

15:30 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Graphs – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso

09:00 - 13:00 Comparison of continuous variables between two or more groups – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso

10:30 -10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Comparison of continuous variables between two or more groups – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

12:00  - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Comparison of proportions between two or more groups – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

15:30  - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Comparison of proportions between two or more groups – Loïc Chartier – Rafael Alonso 

09:00 - 10:30 Introduction to the course – Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Introduction to logistic regression – Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

12:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Exercise Introduction – Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

15:30 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Exercise Introduction – Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

09:00 - 10:30 Confounding - Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Interaction - Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

12:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Exercise Counfounding - Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

15:30 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17 Exercise Interactions - Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

09:00 - 10:30 Model building - Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Model building - Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

12:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Exercise Model building- Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

15:30 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Exercise Model building- Aline Munier – Rafael Alonso

09:00 - 10:30 Introduction to survival analysis – Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Non parametric methods (Kaplan-Meier estimates) - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

12:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Exercise - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

15:30 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Exercise - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

09:00 - 10:30 Cox model  - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Cox model - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

12:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Exercise - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

15:30 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Exercise - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

09:00 - 10:30 Cox model - Model building - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Cox model - Model building - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

12:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 15:30 Exercise - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

15:30 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Exercise - Yoann Madec – Rafael Alonso

Teaching team

Deadline

People interested in participate in this course must send the Application Form, together with the following documents:

• a cover letter in which you explain your expectations of the course and how it will contribute to your current research/project
• a complete curriculum vitae describing your experience and training in epidemiology/statistics
• a letter of recommendation from a superior

The complete application must be sent to: stata@pasteur.edu.uy

Deadline:  February 15th, 2012

There is no registration fee. Support for accomodation will be provided to all participants.

For further information or details please send a mail to: stata@pasteur.edu.uy