[Re-understanding of the concept and application value of target trial emulation research]

"Target trial emulation" has been formally established and widely applied as a new framework for real-world study in recent years, which can be used to guide observational causal inference research based on real-world data, including the evaluation of the effectiveness and safety of medical interventions. The framework aims to identify key factors in observational studies that align with a target clinical trial, utilizing causal inference methodology to establish causal associations between interventions and clinical outcomes. This paper summarizes the origin and conceptual definition of the framework, statistical design, implementation steps, research status and progress, application value classic cases, and the main challenges facing the framework.