The Strengthening Analytical Thinking in Observational Studies (STRATOS) Initiative

The validity and practical utility of observational medical research depends critically on good study design, excellent data quality, appropriate statistical methods and accurate interpretation of results. Statistical methodology has seen substantial advances in recent decades. Unfortunately, many of these methodological developments are underutilized or ignored in practice, often due to the lack of practical guidance for implementation. These observations motivated the founding of The Strengthening Analytical Thinking in Observational Studies (STRATOS) initiative in 2013. STRATOS is an international collective of statisticians and experts in biomedical research whose objective is to provide accessible and accurate guidance in the design and analysis of observational studies. There are several working topic groups (TGs) focused on issues that arise commonly in observational studies, including missing data, initial data analysis, model selection, measurement error, study design, prediction models, causal inference, survival analysis, and high dimensional data. In addition, there are several cross-cutting panels such as simulation studies, visualization and open science. The developed guidance and educational materials is intended for applied statisticians and other data analysts with varying levels of statistical education, experience and interests. In this session we will present a brief overview of the STRATOS initiative and present some of its recent work and outreach activities for several of the working groups, where to access these resources, and how to get involved.