BACKGROUND The essential first step in the development of mass media health campaigns is to identify specific beliefs of the target audience. The challenge is to prioritize suitable beliefs derived from behavioral theory. The purpose of this study was to identify suitable beliefs to target in a mass media campaign to change behavior using a new method to estimate the possible effect size of a s...

The attribrisk package has been created to make attributable risk (AR) inference easier to calculate. This vignette gives only a small amount of theory, users who wish more are directed to Khan [3]. The term attributable risk is used to refer to the amount of disease in a population that can be attributed to a particular exposure. The terms population attributable risk and etiologic fraction ha...

BACKGROUND To estimate the contribution of tobacco smoking, alcohol drinking, low vegetable intake and low fruit intake to esophageal cancer mortality and incidence in China. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We calculated the proportion of esophageal cancer attributable to four known modifiable risk factors [population attributable fraction (PAF)]. Exposure data was taken from meta-analyses and...

BACKGROUND Infections with certain viruses, bacteria, and parasites have been identified as strong risk factors for specific cancers. An update of their respective contribution to the global burden of cancer is warranted. METHODS We considered infectious agents classified as carcinogenic to humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. We calculated their population attributable ...

OBJECTIVES To estimate the proportion and number of cancers occurring in Australia in 2010 attributable to combined oral contraceptive pill (OCP) use. METHODS We estimated the population attributable fraction (PAF) for cancers causally associated with combined OCP use (breast, cervix), and the proportion of endometrial and ovarian cancers prevented (prevented fraction [PF]). We used standard ...

BACKGROUND Acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI) are a major cause of hospitalisation in young children. Many factors can lead to increased risk of ALRI in children and predispose a child to hospitalisation, but population attributable fractions for different risk factors and how these fractions differ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children is unknown. This study investigates popula...