Examining the Ability to Conduct Influenza Antiviral Effectiveness Studies in Sentinel by Improving Confounding Control

This activity is the second project sponsored by the FDA Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS), Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats (OCET) to explore how the Sentinel System may inform study protocols for medical countermeasure safety and effectiveness and to provide a valuable baseline for comparison during a public health emergency. The objective of this methods activity is to determine whether there is evidence of residual confounding in the association between influenza antiviral(s) and influenza complications in observational studies.

The Sentinel Operations Center (SOC), with guidance from the workgroup, which includes FDA members, will compare study results to estimates derived from randomized controlled clinical trials, with the goal of replicating the known association shown in clinical trials. Second, the SOC will conduct analyses using a negative control period as well as a negative control endpoint to evaluate its analysis model.