Attributable Risk

Question 1

Describe attributable risk

Answer 1

• The amount of disease incidence that can be attributed to a specific exposure
• Very good for prevention as you know ‘excess risk’
• Only derived from cohort studies as exposure or none exposure comes before the disease

Question 2

Equation for attributable risk

Answer 2

Attributable risk = incidence in exposed group - incidence in non exposed group

Question 3

Describe population attributable risk

Answer 3

• Gives you the attributable risk for the whole population in a specific community but cannot be used for other communities unless factors are the same.

Question 4

Equation for population attributable risk

Answer 4

Population attributable risk = attributable risk x proportion of the population exposed to the risk

or

Population attributable risk = incidence in population - incidence in the unexposed

Question 5

What is population attributable risk fraction?

Answer 5

The proportion of all the disease incidences which are statistically attributes to the exposure being investigated

Question 6

What does a big population attributable risk fraction mean?

Answer 6

The greater the association of the exposure and the disease

Question 7

Equation of the population attributable risk fraction

Answer 7

population attributable risk fraction = population attributable risk / risk in the whole population x 1000

Question 8

Equation for risk in the population

Answer 8

Risk in the whole population = Number of people with the disease/ Total number in the population