Skip to content
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Menu
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Menu
Home
About Us
Resources
Profiles Metrics
Authors Directory
Institutions Directory
Top Authors
Top Institutions
Top Sponsors
AI Digest
Contact Us
Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
What do case-control studies estimate? Survey of methods and assumptions in published case-control research
American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 168, No. 9, Year 2008
Notification
URL copied to clipboard!
Description
To evaluate strategies used to select cases and controls and how reported odds ratios are interpreted, the authors examined 150 case-control studies published in leading general medicine, epidemiology, and clinical specialist journals from 2001 to 2007. Most of the studies (125/150; 83%) were based on incident cases; among these, the source population was mostly dynamic (102/125; 82%). A minority (23/125; 18%) sampled from a fixed cohort. Among studies with incident cases, 105 (84%) could interpret the odds ratio as a rate ratio. Fifty-seven (46% of 125) required the source population to be stable for such interpretation, while the remaining 48 (38% of 125) did not need any assumptions because of matching on time or concurrent sampling. Another 17 (14% of 125) studies with incident cases could interpret the odds ratio as a risk ratio, with 16 of them requiring the rare disease assumption for this interpretation. The rare disease assumption was discussed in 4 studies but was not relevant to any of them. No investigators mentioned the need for a stable population. The authors conclude that in current case-control research, a stable exposure distribution is much more frequently needed to interpret odds ratios than the rare disease assumption. At present, investigators conducting case-control studies rarely discuss what their odds ratios estimate. © The Author 2008. Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved.
Authors & Co-Authors
Knol, Mirjam J.
Netherlands, Utrecht
University Medical Center Utrecht
Netherlands, Utrecht
Universiteit Utrecht
Vandenbroucke, Jan P.
Netherlands, Leiden
Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum
Scott, Pippa
Switzerland, Bern
University of Bern
Egger, Matthias
Switzerland, Bern
University of Bern
United Kingdom, Bristol
University of Bristol
Statistics
Citations: 142
Authors: 4
Affiliations: 5
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1093/aje/kwn217
ISSN:
14766256
Research Areas
Health System And Policy
Study Design
Cross Sectional Study
Cohort Study
Case-Control Study
Study Approach
Quantitative