The Future of Mendelian Randomization Studies 2021

This is the rescheduled workshop of 2020

When randomized trials are not feasible, observational studies carefully analyzed with appropriate causal inference methods are our best bet for informing clinical and societal decisions. As many urgent and important public health questions cannot be ethically or feasibly addressed with randomized trials, it is all the more important that observational studies are appropriately analyzed. Because of limitations with conventional approaches alongside the increasing availability of genetic data, recent years have seen a huge rise in “Mendelian randomization” analyses which use genetic information to help address some of these types of questions. While Mendelian randomization methods have several strengths, there are open questions in terms of best practices for the conduct and reporting of these analyses. Our workshop aims to bring together epidemiologists, statisticians, geneticists, and others with relevant medical or mathematical expertise in order to tackle these questions head-on.

This workshop will be considered a success if we collectively identify and/or begin to develop empirically supported guidelines for Mendelian randomization analyses, have obtained systematic comparisons of available analytic methods via our data challenge, and have a research agenda for prioritizing subtopics for further research.