The self-controlled case-series (SCCS) research design and the <tt>sccsdta</tt> command

The self-controlled case-series (SCCS) design is a powerful analytical approach that is particularly useful in pharmacological and epidemiological studies. It inherently controls for known and unknown time-invariant confounders. The SCCS uses data from exposed individuals who have experienced the event of interest within a defined observation period. Thus, the study is less resource intensive than other designs that need data from a larger population. The SCCS design is well suited to investigate acute events and temporary exposures. It is frequently used to study the safety of vaccines and pharmaceutical drugs. In this article, I introduce a new command, sccsdta , and illustrate its use with real-world data.