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The missed lessons of Sir Austin Bradford Hill
- Source :
- Epidemiologic perspectives & innovations : EP+I
- Publication Year :
- 2004
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2004.
-
Abstract
- Austin Bradford Hill's landmark 1965 paper contains several important lessons for the current conduct of epidemiology. Unfortunately, it is almost exclusively cited as the source of the "Bradford-Hill criteria" for inferring causation when association is observed, despite Hill's explicit statement that cause-effect decisions cannot be based on a set of rules. Overlooked are Hill's important lessons about how to make decisions based on epidemiologic evidence. He advised epidemiologists to avoid over-emphasizing statistical significance testing, given the observation that systematic error is often greater than random error. His compelling and intuitive examples point out the need to consider costs and benefits when making decisions about health-promoting interventions. These lessons, which offer ways to dramatically increase the contribution of health science to decision making, are as needed today as they were when Hill presented them.
- Subjects :
- medicine.medical_specialty
Actuarial science
Cost–benefit analysis
Operations research
Epidemiology
Computer science
Statement (logic)
epidemiologic methods
health policy
Analytic Perspective
Causal inference
medicine
Bradford Hill criteria
causal inference
Causation
Set (psychology)
Health policy
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17425573
- Volume :
- 1
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....61ca3d52249f800c0e57583e02e20ce7