Self-controlled Case Series Studies

The self-controlled case series (SCCS) method is an epidemiological technique, similar to cohort and case-control studies, where cases are used as their own controls. It is flexible, easy-to-use, and can lead to substantial cost-saving in comparison to other methods. The method has grown in popularity in the epidemiology literature in the last twenty years, and has a wide range of applications. This book presents an overview of the methodology, illustrated through many examples and case studies. R software is used for all analyses, with code and data available on a supplementary website.

Paddy Farrington worked for 11 years at the Immunisation Division and Statistics Unit of?what is now Public Health England, where he developed the self-controlled case series method. He joined the Open University in 1998, and was appointed Professor of Statistics in 2004. In 2013 he was awarded the Royal Statistical Society’s Bradford Hill medal. He is now Professor Emeritus, having retired from the Open University in 2015.

Heather Whitaker has worked at The Open University since 2002, first as a research fellow, then lecturer, and was appointed senior lecturer in 2015. She has worked on the self-controlled case series method since 2004, and has contributed to its popularisation and development.

Yonas Ghebremichael Weldeselassie is a senior research fellow at Warwick University medical school. He obtained his PhD degree in statistics from the Open University in the UK in 2014 and his master degree in biostatistics from Hasselt University, Belgium in 2010. Dr Yonas has previously worked as an assistant lecturer of statistics at Mekelle University in Ethiopia, and as a research associate at the Open University.