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Workshop 1: Critical Reading of Health Literature
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Arguments have facts plus reasoning plus persuasion
Explanations have facts plus reasoning no persuasion
Non-arguments do not have reasoning embedded in them
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Workshop 1, part II: Constructing standard form
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Explicit arguments are directly expressed
Implicit arguments have to be inferred from explicit arguments
Standard form provides an argument map
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Workshop 2: Deductive, inductive, and abductive reasons
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Deductive reasoning is about logic
Inductive reasoning is about finding patterns and probability
Abductive reasoning is about explanations
In abductive reasoning, you ask the question:why?
Start with an explanation
Your theory is an abstract form of explanation
Derive hypotheses from theory
Your theory must explain everything observed, nothing left
You must have more than one theory to test
Either find an exceptional observation that refutes the theory
Or find a simpler theory to work with
Correlation does not imply causation
Valid association plus causal conditions = causation
Valid association = chance, bias, and confounding
Null hypothesis significance testing is about chance
You can only fix bias issues before the study begins
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Workshop 3: Epidemiological study designs
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Case series, case control studies, cohort studies are commonly used epidemiological study designs
Case control studies are great for cancer & other rare diseases
Cohort studies are great for rare exposure but common diseases
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Workshop 4: biases
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Biases are systematic errors in study designs
Biases should be eliminated at the stage of study designs
Biases will drive the results of studies either towards the null or in unpredictable directions
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Workshop 5: how to write a proposal
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Study proposals have three elements: background, review of literature, and methods
In background, introduce the main concept and the gaps in the literature
In the methods section, lay out the steps you will take to complete the study
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