NCRM videos

What is Causal Inference by Dr Richard Emsley

23-02-2013

Causal inference is concerned with the quantifying the relationship between a particular exposure (the cause) and an outcome (the effect). Implicitly or explicitly, causal inference is the primary aim of most empirical investigations, especially in medicine and behavioural science. It can be summarised as explicitly defining the estimand of interest, formalising the assumptions required for traditional statistical models to estimate causal parameters and developing new statistical models and theory to estimate causal parameters. There has been a huge growth in publications relating to causal inference in the literature in the previous three decades. The process of generating information on the relative costs and benefits of a specific technology is called economic evaluation.