Presenter: Dr Victoria Landsman, Genetic Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) and Assistant Professor with the Division of Biostatistics, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.

Abstract: I will discuss the use of household survey data with linked mortality files for estimating survival probabilities/curves for different exposure groups. This work was motivated by a collaborative study on estimation of smoking hazards and cessation benefits in the US recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Household survey data are often collected through stratified multi-stage complex sampling designs, which should be accounted for in the estimation. Moreover, the crude hazard rate estimator, often used to obtain the survival probabilities, can underestimate the true death rate in the population, and a more flexible estimator is highly desirable. The talk will focus on proposed statistical methods to address these challenges, and will compare the survival probabilities from the proposed methods with those from the crude hazard estimation using the smoking data from the US National Health Interview Survey with Linked Mortality Files.

When:  Monday December 2nd, 2013 6-7 pm seminar 7 pm dinner (optional, but registration required)

Where:  Room 7-605, Princess Margaret Hospital, 610 University Avenue

Cost: Seminar – free Dinner – $15  (students $5)

To attend, please RSVP by or on Friday the 29th of November: * for seminar only, please email us by clicking here: mailto:taba.exec@gmail.com?subject=SeminarOnly * for seminar and dinner, please email us by clicking here: mailto:taba.exec@gmail.com?subject=SeminarAndDinner If you plan to attend the dinner, we accept a mailed cheque, Interac email money transfer or cash at the event. If you have to cancel the dinner we request a 48 hour notice otherwise TABA has to pay for it. For Interac email money transfer (not PayPal): do the transfer via your bank to taba.exec@gmail.com and send a separate email via your own email program to us (taba.exec@gmail.com) giving the answer to the security question you used so that we can accept the transfer. For cheques: mail cheque, payable to TABA, to Lorinda Simms Eli Lilly Canada Inc. 3650 Danforth Ave Toronto, ON M1N 2E8 ******************************************************************** TABA seminars are made possible thanks in part to generous donations from *** Purdue Pharma Canada *** *** McDougall Scientific *** We’d love to see your company name here as a sponsor: please contact Lorinda Simms  or Ruth Croxford (taba.exec@gmail.com). *********************************************************************

TABA executive:

Ruth Croxford

Marguerite Ennis

Lorinda Simms

Veronika Moravan

Angelo Canty