Bias associated with study protocols in epidemiologic studies of disease familial aggregation.

@article{citeulike:2808796, abstract = {The effect of selection bias has not been well evaluated in epidemiologic studies which focus on familial aggregation. The authors illustrate this type of bias for a reconstructed cohort study. With the reconstructed cohort design, cases and controls are first selected from the population and their relatives form the exposed and unexposed cohorts, respectively. The recurrence risk ratio (RRR) is calculated to assess and measure familial aggregation. The ways of utilizing information from relatives affects the estimate of RRR, and the authors show that a traditional method used in epidemiologic studies can yield a severely biased estimate of the RRR. However, this traditional approach can give approximately unbiased estimates under special conditions. A novel selection approach is proposed which yields an unbiased estimate of RRR. In conclusion, when relatives are identified through cases or controls, they should be included and counted in the study cohorts each time a case or control is selected, even if they or other family members have already been included.}, address = {Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.}, author = {Bai, Y. and Sherman, S. and Khoury, M. J. and Flanders, W. D. }, citeulike-article-id = {2808796}, issn = {0002-9262}, journal = {American journal of epidemiology}, month = {May}, number = {9}, pages = {927--937}, posted-at = {2008-05-18 11:21:46}, priority = {2}, title = {Bias associated with study protocols in epidemiologic studies of disease familial aggregation.}, url = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10791566}, volume = {151}, year = {2000} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2808796 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2808796 TI - Bias associated with study protocols in epidemiologic studies of disease familial aggregation. JF - American journal of epidemiology VL - 151 IS - 9 SP - 927 EP - 937 AD - Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. SN - 0002-9262 N2 - The effect of selection bias has not been well evaluated in epidemiologic studies which focus on familial aggregation. The authors illustrate this type of bias for a reconstructed cohort study. With the reconstructed cohort design, cases and controls are first selected from the population and their relatives form the exposed and unexposed cohorts, respectively. The recurrence risk ratio (RRR) is calculated to assess and measure familial aggregation. The ways of utilizing information from relatives affects the estimate of RRR, and the authors show that a traditional method used in epidemiologic studies can yield a severely biased estimate of the RRR. However, this traditional approach can give approximately unbiased estimates under special conditions. A novel selection approach is proposed which yields an unbiased estimate of RRR. In conclusion, when relatives are identified through cases or controls, they should be included and counted in the study cohorts each time a case or control is selected, even if they or other family members have already been included. AU - Bai, Y AU - Sherman, S AU - Khoury, MJ AU - Flanders, WD PY - 2000/05/01/ UR - http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10791566 ER -