Clinical epidemiology and measures of effect — branching viva

Opening (candidate)

I would approach these two papers by asking which measure of effect each design allows, and then checking whether the headline figure is the right one for that design. For the case-control study I would build the 2x2 table and compute the odds ratio myself, then ask whether the outcome is common enough to make reading it as a relative risk misleading. For the trial I would compute the absolute risk reduction and the number needed to treat from the event rates, read the hazard ratio alongside the Kaplan-Meier curve, and check whether the confidence interval crosses the null before trusting any of the figures. [7] [9]