Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SCOUT (Supporting Causal Conclusions from Observational Survival Studies)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2018-10-01 do 2020-09-30
The objectives and goals were addressed via 6 work packages (WPs) with specific tasks: (1) WP1 concerned mediation analysis techniques for sparse data. The WP resulted in 1 published paper and another manuscript is already submitted. Two further manuscripts are underway. Presentations of preliminary results were accepted for poster presentations at 2 conferences, however these events are postponed due to the COVID19 pandemic. (2) WP2 focused on the comparison of the Cox and Aalen models in practice. We published 1 paper, 2 manuscripts are underway. The results were presented in 2 poster presentations and 1 oral presentation at international conferences. (3) WP3 was reserved for a secondment period; Working on WP2 it became clear that stay at the Oslo Center of Biostatistics and Epidemiology would be beneficial. The stay was cut short due to the pandemic. Further travel restriction led to plan adaptions so that I would gain experience in the private sector at the Austrian branch of SAS (Statistical Analysis Systems), a multinational software company dealing with data warehousing, statistical analysis pipelines and statistical consulting. I took part in several company activities, such as the newcomer session and the regular meetings of the SAS DACH (Germany-Austria-Switzerland) community, where I also presented my research activities. This led to a joint project with the manufacturing branch on minimizing the vibrations in a cement mill. We summarized our experience in a presentation to the community. (4) WP 4 involved participation in courses offered by the MUW’s Human Resources Development department. I chose courses on English writing skills, intellectual property rights and project management, ethics in medicine and good scientific practice and will participate in pandemic-postponed course next spring. (5) The focus of WP5 was my future career development. To gain more experience in the full range of academic job tasks, I taught 4 different courses, 3 compulsory courses for the medical program and 1 course for the public health doctoral program. Further, I contributed 15 review reports for high level methodological journals as well as applied journals within neurobiology, nephrology, atherosclerosis or cancer research. Within a collaboration with the Department of Epidemiology at the MUW I could gain supervision experience and also contribute my methodological expertise in 5 published manuscripts. Ultimately, this fruitful collaboration led to my new job post. (6) WP 6 was about networking, communication and dissemination. I presented my work in 2 oral presentations, and 4 poster presentations were accepted at international conferences. In 4 presentations I reached audiences working in public health, statisticians working in pharmaceutical industry and regulatory institutions and members from SAS business analytics or marketing departments. I was appointed ‘secretary’ of the Viennese Biometric Section of the Austro-Swiss Region of the International Biometric Society. Together with the organisation’s president, we coordinated 24 colloquium talks and 3 workshops and organized an interdisciplinary seminar on ‘Update in Evidence Synthesis Methods – Current Topics in Meta-analysis’ with eight national and international speakers. Overall, the goals of the MSCA IF proposal were met, despite secondment adjustments due to the COVID19 pandemic.