This paper discusses the importance of confounding in observational before-and-after studies of road safety measures. The importance of the approach taken to controlling for confounding factors is shown by means of examples. It is shown that the size of the effect on accidents attributed to a road safety measure can be profoundly affected by which confounding factors are controlled for in an ev...

Breastfeeding is associated with reduced risks of gastrointestinal and intestinal infections, and of mortality due to those infections. 1,2 The protective effect is stronger against gastrointestinal infection than against respiratory infection, and in developing than in developed countries for both types of infection, and increases with the duration and exclusivity of breastfeeding. The magnitu...

The author proposes that epidemiologic studies should more often assess the associations of a single exposure with multiple outcomes simultaneously. Such "outcome-wide epidemiology" will be especially important for exposures that may be beneficial for some outcomes but harmful for others. Outcome-wide epidemiology may also be helpful in prioritizing public health recommendations. Methodological...

Commentary I nstrumental variable analysis is an increasingly popular statistical method in epidemio-logic research. 1 epidemiologists' enthusiasm for this approach may be because it can potentially estimate causal effects in observational data in the presence of unmeasured confounding. 2 This overcomes a significant limitation of conventional epidemiologic methods, such as multivariable regres...

To the Editor: Viguier et al. (1) reported that the ERCC1 codon 118 polymorphism has a predictive value in colorectal cancer patients treated with platinum combination chemotherapy. However, there are contradictory reports on the effects of this polymorphism on the survival of cancer patients. Although Viguier et al. suggested that cancer patients carrying a variant genotype survived for a long...

In a critical review (Thomas and Baker, 2012), we argued for caution in evaluating reports of training-dependent adult structural plasticity measured with MRI. Here, we respond to the commentaries on our review, clarifying our position and addressing some of the specific criticisms raised.

1. Snoep JD, Morabia A, Hernandez-Diaz S, Hernan MA, Vandenbroucke JP. A structural approach to Berkson’s fallacy: and a guide to a history of opinions about it. Int J Epidemiol 2014;43:515–21. 2. Berkson J. Limitations of the application of fourfold table analysis to hospital data. Biometrics Bull 1946;2:47–53. Reprinted Int J Epidemiol 2014;43:511–15. 3. Rothman KJ, Greenland S, Lash TL. Vali...

This paper deals with the area of environmental epidemiology involving measurement of exposure and dose, health outcomes, and important confounding and modifying variables (including genotype and psychosocial factors). Using examples, we illustrate strategies for increasing the accuracy of exposure and dose measurement that include dosimetry algorithms, pharmacokinetic models, biologic markers,...

    Molecular epidemiology is a subdivision of medical science and epidemiology that emphases on the involvement of potential environmental and genetic risk factors, recognized at the molecular level, to the etiology and avoidance of sickness through populations. This arena has developed from the combination of molecular biology and traditional epidemiological research. Molecular...

Abstract Background To assess the benefit of postoperative radiotherapy in patients with pT1-2N1M0 oral and oropharyngeal cancer by quality neck dissection. Methods In Surveillance, Epidemiology, End Results database, treated primary tumor resection dissection or without were included between 2004 2015. Univariate multivariate analysis used to explore effect adjuvant on 5-year overall survival ...