Maurice Bloch Seminar: Prof J Kaufman

We are pleased to invite you to:

The Institute of Health and Wellbeing Maurice Bloch Annual Lecture Series

Title: “How to Break Something by Fixing It”

Presenter: Prof Jay Kaufman

Date: Wednesday 25 May 2022

Time: 1-2pm - a light lunch will be provided beforehand

Chair: Prof Alistair Leyland

Venue: The Senate room, Main Building, University Avenue, G12 8QQ

Abstract:

Centres of population health research, like University of Glasgow’s Institute of Health & Wellbeing, are enriched by the interface between disciplines and the exchange of methods and ways of thinking from one academic culture to another. One of the more interesting and dynamic interfaces at places like the IHW is between epidemiology and economics, fields with rich but distinct traditions of data analysis and causal discovery. I will describe some of the differences in worldview between these fields, and then illustrate with the handling of clustering, as both an analytic challenge (hierarchical data) and as a design strategy (matching). Causal tools from one discipline reveal the limitations and dangers of the practices that characterize the other. I review the good, the bad and the ugly from fixed effects designs like exposure-discordant siblings, and how insights from both epidemiology and economics balance the pros and cons of this method in health research.

Bio

Jay S. Kaufman obtained a doctorate in epidemiologic science from the University of Michigan (1990-1995) and a post-doctoral fellowship at Loyola Stritch School of Medicine (1995-1997). He was Medical Epidemiologist at Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, NC (1997 to 1999), and held positions as Assistant and Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health at Chapel Hill and as Faculty Fellow of the Carolina Population Center (1999-2008). In 2009 he began his current position as Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University. He is also currently appointed as Visiting Professor in the School of Public Health of the University of Chile, and holds adjunct positions at schools of public health in North Carolina and Michigan. Dr. Kaufman's work focuses on social epidemiology, analytic methodology, causal inference and on a variety of health outcomes including perinatal outcomes and cardiovascular, psychiatric and infectious diseases. He is an editor at the journal “Epidemiology” and co-editor of the textbook “Methods in Social Epidemiology” (2nd Edition, 2017). He received the Excellence in Education Award from the Society for Epidemiologic Research (SER) in 2017 and is President of SER in 2020-2021.