On July 18, 2022, in the framework of the planned activities of the SVETOVID-19 project, a Journal club was held on the topic of the Application of causal analysis in biomedical research.
At the beginning of the meeting, Sara Mijailović, PhD student and Research Intern at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, presented the main principles of Causal analysis, as well as the possibilities of applying this approach in the further course of the project. Also, the term Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) and its role in the causal analysis are presented. The different types of variables that can be found within the graph (Confounding, Mediation, Collider Bias...) are explained, as well as the way to classify them into one of the mentioned groups.
After that, the members of the project team discussed the presented methodology, and its application and they proposed potential models of causality that would be created in the next steps of the project. The variable that will represent the investigated cause in the model, as well as the outcome of the causal model, were defined. Previous results of scientific research and published literature were discussed and variables that, so far, have shown a significant impact on the defined cause, outcome, or both, were singled out. The members also classified the variables according to the methodology so that in the following stages, each of these variables would be presented on a graph and its effect would be adequately analyzed.
At the end of the Journal Club, other possible models were discussed, where causal analysis can be used as a methodological approach. It was stated that the presence of certain comorbidities (regulated and unregulated) in patients is a potential cause and that the causality of those variables could be investigated.
