Education and Training

5 to 9 September 2011 (DEADLINE NOW CLOSED)

R is a language and environment for statistical analysis and graphics. R provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical techniques, and is highly extensible. The course “Statistical Practice in Epidemiology with R” is an introduction to R for epidemiologists with the aim of showing how common epidemiological analyses can be carried out in R. The course also covers a selection of more advanced topics showing the power of the R language.

The course is intended for epidemiologists and statisticians who wish to use R for statistical modelling and analysis of data in cancer 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.

Topics to be covered in the course include

• History of R. Language. Objects. Functions.
• Interface to other data formats. Data frames.
• 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 & Standardized Mortality Ratios.
• Survival analysis and competing risks.
• Nested and matched case-control studies.
• Case-cohort studies.
• Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo with JAGS.

The course "Statistical Practice in Epidemiology" course has been running since 2002 in Tartu, Estonia. The faculty for the 2011 course are:

- Bendix Carstensen, Senior Statistician, Steno Diabetes Center, Gentofte & Department of Biostatistics,
  University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
  Maintainer of the Epi package for R

- Krista Fischer, Senior Researcher, Estonian Genome Center, University of Tartu, Estonia.

- Esa Läärä, Professor of Biometry, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Oulu, Finland.

- Martyn Plummer, Statistician, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France. Member of the R
  core team.


Participants will be provided with personal computers and software as required during the course. Participants may bring their own (Wi-Fi enabled) laptop. Windows, Linux and Mac OS X are all supported.


Upon completion of the course, each participant will receive a certificate of participation. There is no formal examination.


Course Fee: There is one universal fee of €550 for the course, which includes course materials and tea/coffee at each break. The course fee also includes an official dinner on Thursday night. Participants will be responsible for the cost of travel and accommodation.


Participants will be responsible for obtaining a visa for France, if required. IARC will provide them with an invitation letter to facilitate this process. Successful applicants will be sent a list of hotels and residences in Lyon and will be responsible for booking their own accommodation.


Fill in the application form and return by email to Martyn Plummer before 22 May. (DEADLINE NOW CLOSED)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

 IARC Courses Programme
 International Agency for Research on Cancer
 150 cours Albert Thomas
 F-69008 Lyon
 France
 Tel: +33 4 72 73 80 72
 Fax: +33 4 72 73 80 80
 E-mail:
 Website: www.iarc.fr