Comparison of the Test-negative Design and Cohort Design With Explicit Target Trial Emulation for Evaluating COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness.
Guilin LiHanna GerlovinMichael J Figueroa MuñizJessica K WiseArin L MadenciJames M RobinsMihaela AslanKelly ChoJohn Michael GazianoMarc LipsitchJuan Pablo CasasMiguel A HernánBarbra A DickermanPublished in: Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) (2023)
Vaccine effectiveness estimates under a cohort design with explicit target trial emulation and a test-negative design were similar when using rich information from the VA healthcare system, but diverged in opposite directions when using a limited dataset. In settings like ours with sufficient information on confounders and other key variables, the cohort design with explicit target trial emulation may be preferable as a principled approach that allows estimation of absolute risks and facilitates interpretation of effect estimates.