Course 3
Date
19 – 21 January 2026
Faculty
Prof. Julie Werenberg Dreier
Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Denmark
Prof. Oleguer Plana-Ripoll
Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Denmark
Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Spain
Venue
CH – 3823 Wengen | tbd
Course description
Large-scale individual-level secondary health data (i.e., administrative data from hospital registers, electronic healthcare records, claims databases etc.) constitute a gold-mine for epidemiological research. This course consists of a broad range of topics relevant to epidemiological research based on administrative healthcare data sources, including data linkage, different possibilities for study designs, strengths and limitations of secondary data analysis, and good data management and analysis practices. There will be special focus on how to avoid common pitfalls (e.g. issues related to immortal time, right-censoring and left-truncation), as well as approaches to address confounding, selection bias, and misclassification in epidemiological research based on administrative data, including an introduction to quantitative bias analysis. Hands-on
exercises with artificial data where participants will be managing data from multiple databases will put theory from the course into practice, in order to provide the participants with the necessary knowledge and skills to carry out their own research projects. Finally, there will be discussions on potential limitations or different approaches to answer specific research questions, which can include specific issues related to participants’ own projects.
Course objectives
By the end of this course participants will:
- Be familiar with different epidemiological designs used in research based on administrative health data
- Have an in-depth understanding of how to avoid common pitfalls in analysis of administrative data and be familiar with epidemiological approaches to address and quantify biases.
- Be able to discuss the strengths and limitations of research based on administrative health data
- Be able to perform simple data management tasks using artificial data
- Have knowledge of how to plan their own research using administrative data
Course audience
This course is aimed at epidemiologists, statisticians and other health researchers who want to use secondary data sources in their research.
Stata® or R (https://www.r-project.org/) will be used for the computer practical sessions, and so familiarity with one of the two software applications is desirable, although code and solutions will be provided.
Course outline
The course runs over three days and consist of lectures and computer practical sessions.
Morning sessions will consist of lectures. During the extended afternoon break, participants review course materials, catch up on email, or ski. We reconvene at 4:30 pm for the computer sessions.
Monday, 19 January 8:00 am – 12:00 pm | 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Tuesday, 20 January 8:00 am – 12:00 pm | 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Wednesday, 21 January 8:00 am – 12:00 pm | 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Credits
1.0 ECTS
Course materials
Bring a portable computer. A temporary course license for Stata® will be available to install before arrival. Instructions how to install Stata or R on your laptops will also be provided. Onsite University of Bern IT staff provides support upon e-mail () request.
Course fee
| PhD Bern: | CHF 600 |
| PhD other: | CHF 800 |
| Academic: | CHF 1’000 |
| Industry: | CHF 2’000 |
Registration
Go to registration information
Accommodation
Book your accommodation separately. Please see recommendations for special prices.