Section 6: Harm Studies Flashcards
What is a Harm Study
Assess the casual relationship between exposure and disease
What is the hierarchy of research evidence
systematic reviews>RCT’s>cohort studies>case-control studies>case series>case reports>editorials and opinions>animal research and lab studies
What is a confounder
anything that independently affects the exposure and the outcome
What are Hill’s criteria for causality
- temporal relationship
- experimental evidence
- dose response relationship
- statistical significance
- consistency across studies
- plausibility
Are RCT’s used for Harm studies
RCT’s are usually too small and too short to be valid for detecting harm
Are cohort studies prospective or retrospective
prospective
What are cohort studies useful for
studying interactive causes of harm
-compare multiple interactive causes
Is a cohort study ethically permissable
yes, it is more so
What does it mean to estimate risk
if there is a causal relationship, how strong is it?
What is the risk of disease in exposed individuals vs those not exposed
If the relative risk = 1 what does that mean
risk is equal, no association
If relative risk is >1
exposure increases disease risk
If relative risk is >1
exposure reduces disease risk
Is a case control study prospective or retrospective
retrospective -useful if the outcome of interest is rare of takes a long time to develop
Can true risk of population be obtained from a case control study
no, the true risk of event occuring in the population cant be calculated because it is a retrospective study
How is a case control study used
to calculate the odds that a group was, or was not exposed to some variable
