Ecological studies have been evaluated in epidemiological contexts in terms of the "ecological fallacy." Although the empirical evidence for a lack of comparability between correlations derived from ecological- and individual-level analyses is compelling, the conceptual meaning of the ecological fallacy remains problematic. This paper argues that issues in cross-level inference can be usefully ...

background: breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths among women worldwide. each year it is newly diagnosed in more than 1.1 million women around the world. the aims of this study were to investigate the role of dietary factors such as consumption of vegetables, fruits, dairy products, fried food, fish, and salt along with food, and factors such as weight, physical activi...

In 19th century Europe, suicide rates were higher in countries that were more heavily Protestant, the inference being that suicide was promoted by the social conditions of Protestantism (Durkheim 1897; also see Neeleman and Lewis 1999). According to Carroll (1975), death rates from breast cancer are higher in countries where fat is a larger component of the diet, the idea being that fat intake ...

A 332 volume 119 | number 8 | August 2011 • Environmental Health Perspectives mental design may under lie observed differ­ ences in sensitivity to detect neuro toxicity, possibly because of differences in bio kinetics and exposure during sensitive windows of development. Fortunately, much effort is tak­ ing place in the scientific community to opti­ mize experi mental designs at different level...

service Email alerting top right corner of the article Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article-sign up in the box at the

P opulation level studies commonly induce the ecological fallacy, that is, the belief that a relationship identified at the population level implies a cause-and-effect relationship at the level of the individual. A recent research report (DAMASCENE [discrepancies in autologous bone marrow stem cell trials and enhancement of ejection fraction]) that related clinical trial effect sizes in cardiov...

The validity of ecological studies in epidemiology for inferring causal relationships has been widely challenged as observed associations could be biased by the Ecological Fallacy. We reconsider the important design components of ecological studies, and discuss the conditions that may lead to spurious associations. Ecological associations are useful and valid when the ecological exposures can b...