Estimation of the Relative Excess Risk Due to Interaction and Associated Confidence Bounds

The relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI) provides a useful metric of departure from additivity of effects on a relative risk scale. In this paper, the authors show that RERI is identical to the product term in a linear odds ratio or a linear relative risk model. SAS and STATA codes are provided for fitting a linear odds ratio model that directly parameterizes RERI. In addition, this paper presents a method for obtaining likelihood-based 95% confidence bound estimates for RERI. The authors show that likelihood-based confidence intervals may differ substantially from the asymptotic confidence interval estimates advocated by previous authors. The approach presented in this paper should facilitate estimation of RERI and associated likelihood-based confidence bounds, by using standard statistical packages.