I present some extensions of Bayesian methods to situations in which biases are of concern. First, a basic misclassification problem is illustrated using data from a study of sudden infant death syndrome. Bayesian analyses are then given. These analyses can be conducted directly, or by converting actual-data records to incomplete records and prior distributions to complete-data records, then ap...

The foregoing commentaries demonstrate wide differences between their authors’ choice of terms describing epidemiologic research designs, and in the relative importance they attach to directionality, timing, and sample selection. Nowhere is this more evident than in their discrepant definitions of “prospective” and “retrospective” studies. According to Drs Greenland and Morgenstern, “Prospectiv...

THERE ARE ANALYZED SOME OF THE MAIN ASPECTS RELATED TO THE CAUSALITY OF PREECLAMPSIA, PRIVILEGING TWO TYPES OF MODELS: the clinic model and the epidemiologic model, first one represented by the hypothesis of the reduced placental perfusion and the second one considering the epidemiologic findings related to the high levels of psychosocial stress and its association with preeclampsia. It is reas...

BACKGROUND Epidemiologic studies of fine particulate matter [aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm (PM(2.5))] typically use outdoor concentrations as exposure surrogates. Failure to account for variation in residential infiltration efficiencies (F(inf)) will affect epidemiologic study results. OBJECTIVE We aimed to develop models to predict F(inf) for > 6,000 homes in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Athero...

conclusions the use of smoothing methods helps us to eliminate non-linear effects but it is more appropriate to use cox proportional hazards model in medical data because of its’ ease of interpretation and capability of modeling both continuous and discrete covariates. also, cox proportional hazards model and smoothing methods analysis identified that age at diagnosis and tumor size were indepe...

background: data on premature coronary artery disease (cad) are scarce. the tehran heart center's premature coronary atherosclerosis cohort study (thc-pac) is the first study of its kind in the middle east to assess major adverse cardiac events (mace) in young cad patients. methods: the cohort consists of cad patients, males ≤ 45 years old and females ≤ 55 years old. the participants are reside...

Recent studies in both humans and animals suggest that air pollution is an important risk factor for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, the mechanism by which air pollution mediates propensity to diabetes is not fully understood. While a number of epidemiologic studies have shown a positive association between ambient air pollution exposure and risk for T2DM, some studies have not found ...

Research on neighborhood effects faces enormous methodological challenges, with selection bias being near the top of the list. In this issue of the Journal (Am J Epidemiol. 2014;180(8):776-784), Professor Jokela addresses this issue with novel repeated measures data and models that decompose putative effects into those within and between persons. His contribution shows that within-person neighb...

This paper focuses on three aspects of forecasting models for asbestos-related disease/injuries relating to the Manville asbestos case: (1) The structure of forecasting models for asbestos-related personal injuries. (2) The epidemiologic evidence supporting the selected model structure and the constraints on the modeling assumptions imposed by that evidence. (3) The range of uncertainty associa...

A social epidemiologic perspective considers factors at multiple levels of influence (e.g., social networks, neighbourhoods, states) that may individually or jointly affect health and health behaviour. This provides a useful lens through which to understand the production of health behaviours in general, and drug use in particular. However, the analytic models that are commonly applied in popul...