Statistical Practice in Epidemiology using R.

Course from Thursday 17 to Tuesday 22 June 2010 Tartu, Estonia

Organized by the Department of Public Health and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, University of Tartu
The course starts early morning, so arrival in Tartu must be on Wednesday 16 June. The course ends at 14:00, so departure will be possible on 22 June (flights from Tallinn later than 18:00 can be reached).
Similar courses were given earlier, in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Audience

The course is intended for epidemiologists and statisticians who wish to use R for statistical modelling and analysis of epidemiological data.
The aim of the course is to give young statisticians (or not so young epidemiologists) who wish to enter or who has recently entered biostatistics or epidemiology access to a set of tools in current use by statisticians in epidemiology.
The course requires basic knowledge of epidemiological concepts and study types. These will only be briefly reviewed, whereas the more advanced epidemiological and statistical concepts will be treated in depth.

The kissing students outside the town hall of Tartu

History of R. Language. Objects. Functions.
Interface to other dataformats. Dataframes.
Tabulation of data.
Logistic regression for case-control-studies.
Poisson regression for follow-up studies.
Causal inference.
Parametrization of models.
Graphics in R.
Graphical reporting of results.
Time-splitting & SMR.
Survival analysis and competing risks.
Nested and matched case-control studies.
Case-cohort studies.
Using MCMC-methods and JAGS in epidemiologial studies.

All methods will be thoroughly illustrated using R in practical exercises.
The Epi package which is developed for epidemiological analysis in R will be introduced. Particular attention will be given to the reporting of the results; in particular the use of graphics.

Course program and instructions:

Maps of the venue: detailed and larger scale.
If you bring a laptop (which would be a good thing), download the latest version of R, cuurently version 2.10.1, but version 2.11.0 wiil be out before the course. (You can find it here, for example).
Install the R-package Epi. This can be done by starting R and then typing
> install.packages("Epi")
at the command prompt in R. This requires that your computer is connected to the net.

Faculty:

Krista Fischer, statistician, MRC Biostatistics Unit (Cambridge, UK) and University of Tartu, Estonia.
Esa Läärä, Professor of Biometry, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Oulu, Finland.
Bendix Carstensen, Senior Statistician, Steno Diabetes Center, Gentofte & Department of Biostatistics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Maintainer of the Epi package for R
Peter Dalgaard, Associate professor, Department of Biostatistics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Member of the R core team.
Martyn Plummer, Senior Statistician, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France.
Member of the R core team.

Venue

Department of Mathematical Statistics, J. Liivi 2, Tartu, Estonia. The department is located in the new (2002) building of the Mathematical faculty of Tartu University.

Course fee: Commercial: 1000 EUR, Academic: 750 EUR / 500 EUR

The 750 EUR are for participants from the EU pre-2004, North America and the like. 500 for participants from other countries.
Includes course, course material, lunch, coffee breaks and social events.
Excludes transport, accommodation and dinners.
The course is a self-supporting entity, and there are NO grants or stipends available for travel or participation.

Application

Deadline for application: 30th April 2010.
Send and e-mail which briefly states your qualifications in epidemiology and statistics, to the organizers Krista Fischer, Esa Läärä & Bendix Carstensen.
Information to applicants will be given by e-mail shortly after the deadline.

Accommodation:

We have booked a number of rooms in hotel Park and Guesthouse Vikerkaare for the course participants. To book rooms there with the price as quoted below, please contact the hotel directly (contact details on the hotel webpages), telling that you are participant of SPE-2010. These rooms will be distributed on first come - first served basis.

Hotel Park
This ** hotel is situated next to the course venue. Price: 48 EUR /single; 58 EUR double room, incl. breakfast (per night).
Vikerkaare Guesthouse
A nice small guesthouse in a quiet and green residential area in 10 min walking distance from the venue. Price: 26 EUR /single; 38 EUR double room, incl. breakfast (per night).

Alternatively, there are several other accommodation options in Tartu, ranging from modest hostels to 4-star hotels. See the official Tartu Tourist Information page for a complete list.

Transport and getting around in Tartu

Tartu is situated 185 km south-east of the Estonian capital Tallinn.
Tartu Airport opened for international flights in summer 2009, now being connected to Riga (daily flights by Air Baltic) and Stockholm (Estonian Air, 4 days a week).
Tallinn airport is connected to all Scandinavian and most European capitals by direct flights and there is frequent ferry connection between Tallinn and Helsinki. There are frequent buses and less frequent trains between Tallinn and Tartu (travel time approximately 2.5 hrs).
More info on bus/train schedules will follow soon.
Tartu has about 100,000 inhabitants, so most attractions are within walking distance from the course venue.

Updated 26 January 2010, BxC