Risk score models are simple scoring systems that map patient characteristics to the probability of an outcome occurring. These models are popular with clinicians because …
Time introduces complexity in causal inference for observational studies. This thesis investigates two sources of bias for studies involving time-varying data. One is the missing …
The gold standard to estimate the causal effect of an exposure on an outcome is a completely randomized design. Randomized designs are attractive for estimating …
Causal mediation analysis is widely applied in the social, economic and biological sciences to assess the causal mechanism between three variables: a treatment, an intermediate …
In South Africa, the epicentre of the HIV pandemic, there is a high prevalence of circular migration: within-country rural-to-urban cyclical movement, an artifact of apartheid-era …
The epidemiology of Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD) in women is less clear because women are underrepresented in most studies. Dietary factors may play a role …
Background: The treatment effect observed in randomized controlled trials may not reflect the actual effect in the target population if the trial and target populations …
Background Health systems in sub-Saharan Africa are facing an ongoing HIV epidemic and increasing burden of non-communicable disease (NCD). They are transforming to provide more …
DNA Microarrays have become an indispensable technique inbiomedical research. The raw measurements from microarrays undergo anumber of preprocessing steps before the data are converted to …
HIV remains among the leading sources of disease burden worldwide. There is considerable optimism regarding the possibility of eliminating HIV transmission using multi-method strategies anchored …
Health systems in developing countries continue to face dwindling tax revenues, increasing healthcare costs, decreasing donor funding, and burdensome out-of-pocket. This situation is compounded by …
Increasing evidence suggests that some intrauterine insults may program the risk of cardiovascular diseases in later life. However, the underlying pathways remain largely unknown. We …