Ecological Studies
Uses a _____ as the unit of analysis
What is a group?
Cannot report on ___________.
What is incidence?
A case-control study is a design in which you classify participants based on ______.
What is disease status?
A forward-looking study in which the cohort was assembled and the study began before any of the outcomes occurred
What is a prospective cohort study?
Checklist of information to include in reporting a randomized trial
What is CONSORT 2010 Checklist
What are the strengths of ecological studies?
Collects data on _______ and ________ at the same single point in time.
What is an exposure and disease?
Selecting controls to reflect the same or similar proportions of a certain characteristic as the cases.
What is frequency matching?
Study which follows people over time to compare disease ______ between groups that differ by exposure.
What is incidence?
Feasibility, ethical issues, practicality, and external validity
What are limitations of RCTs?
Those who drink coffee have a lower risk of heart disease because countries with high coffee consumption have lower rates of heart disease.
What is ecological fallacy?
Measures ______ to determine disease burden.
What is prevalence? What is prevalence ratio? What is prevalence odds ratio? What is correlation?
You're analyzing a case-control study looking at the relationship between the sugar-sweetened beverage consumption of pregnant women and the risk of autism in their children under 5. You notice that parents with kids who have autism are more acutely aware of their sugar-sweetened beverage consumption compared to parents with kids who don't have autism.
What is recall bias?
Comparison groups must be similar to the group of interest so that the only difference is the ______.
What is the exposure?
Addresses information bias through a fair assessment of study outcomes by staff, funder, and participants
What is blinding?
Published data that is readily available and already collected
What is secondary data?
Accurately and systematically describes a population, situation, or phenomenon.
What is a descriptive study?
We cannot directly estimate the incidence or incidence rate of the outcome because we do not have a complete __________.
What is the at-risk population?
Not a long follow-up period (disease already occurred), inexpensive, no issues with non-participation
What is a retrospective cohort study? What are the advantages of a retrospective cohort study?
Categorizes the study population by known confounders in the design phase allowing for valid randomized treatment comparisons within each stratum
What is stratification?
Narcissa is a Population Health PhD student at NEU and wants to compare the quality of care of 2 nursing homes in Massachusetts within redlined areas, however, 1 nursing home measures quality of care as expected life expectancy after healthcare delivery, and the other measures quality of care as providers satisfied with the care they administered on a scale of not satisfied to very satisfied.
What is a limitation of ecological studies? Bonus: what's the problem here? How would you fix it?
You run the global policy division at the WHO and have tasked your analysts with investigating the relationship between the UK's withdrawal from the EU (Brexit) and the British pound. One of your analysts comes to you with the results of a cross-sectional study they ran saying that Brexit caused the British pound to decline. This analyst used a cross-sectional study to imply _______.
What is causal inference?
You're a research consultant hired to analyze a case-control study looking at the link between vaping and the risk of lung cancer. You notice that the company that hired you obtained controls from the VA and you note that this group is more likely to have pre-existing health conditions and potentially vape themselves, which could distort the association between vaping and lung cancer in the study results.
What is selection bias?
Identifying cases and controls within a cohort study to determine the history of exposure
What is a case-cohort study?
Two cancer epidemiologists working for Merck disagree on how to analyze results from an upcoming Phase III RCT that wants to evaluate the efficacy of a dual therapy (oral and intravenous) vs. a monotherapy (oral only) in patients with Stage II renal cell carcinoma. Jane wants to analyze all patients according to the randomization scheme so that all patients at the start of the trial are considered. John disagrees, saying that this therapy has a fairly high drop-out rate meaning that the analysis may overestimate the dual therapy's effectiveness.
What is the intention-to-treat principle?