Short Course 3 - Think before you do: leveraging direct acyclic graphs (DAGs) for robust sleep medicine research and practice
Tracks
Track 3
| Wednesday, October 8, 2025 |
| 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM |
| Riverbank 3 |
Details
Causal inference is essential in sleep research, yet many studies struggle with systematic bias. This course provides an introduction to DAGs—a powerful tool for visualizing and addressing these challenges. Designed for researchers, clinicians, and public health professionals, this interactive session will cover the fundamentals of DAGs, how to construct and interpret them, and their application in study design and data analysis in a sleep health context. Participants will learn how to identify confounders, avoid common biases, and enhance the validity of causal claims in sleep research. No prior experience with DAGs is required, but a basic understanding of epidemiologic concepts is beneficial. By the end of the course, attendees will be equipped with practical skills to integrate DAGs into their own research, improving the methodological rigor of sleep epidemiology and clinical studies.
Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea are included.
Speaker
Dr Yohannes Melaku
Flinders University
Introduction and course outline
9:00 AM - 9:10 AMBiography
Prof Robert Adams
Flinders University
Robust evidence generation in sleep medicine: What can we do to improve clinical practice and population health?
9:10 AM - 9:30 AMBiography
A/Prof Murthy Mittinty
Flinders University
Bias in epidemiological studies and clinical trials
9:30 AM - 10:30 AMBiography
Dr Yohannes Melaku
Flinders University
The role of causal inference in observational and randomised controlled trials: The case of sleep medicine and sleep epidemiology
11:00 AM - 12:30 PMBiography
A/Prof Murthy Mittinty
Flinders University
Direct Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) – introduction and its application in sleep research
1:30 PM - 3:00 PMBiography
Dr Yohannes Melaku
Flinders University
Direct Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) – introduction and its application in sleep research
1:30 PM - 3:00 PMBiography
Dr Kelly Sansom
Flinders University
Direct Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) – introduction and its application in sleep research
1:30 PM - 3:00 PMBiography
A/Prof Murthy Mittinty
Flinders University
Direct Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) – bring your research question and draw your own DAG
3:30 PM - 5:00 PMBiography
Dr Yohannes Melaku
Flinders University
Direct Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) – bring your research question and draw your own DAG
3:30 PM - 5:00 PMBiography
Dr Kelly Sansom
Flinders University
Direct Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) – bring your research question and draw your own DAG
3:30 PM - 5:00 PMBiography
Dr Yohannes Melaku
Flinders University
Chair
Biography
