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A unified approach to the analysis of case‐distribution (case‐only) studies
Author(s) -
Greenland Sander
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0258(19990115)18:1<1::aid-sim961>3.0.co;2-l
Subject(s) - contrast (vision) , computer science , econometrics , distribution (mathematics) , case analysis , statistics , mathematics , artificial intelligence , mathematical analysis
A number of new study designs have appeared in which the exposure distribution of a case series is compared to an exposure distribution representing a complete theoretical population or distribution. These designs include the case‐genotype study, the case‐cross‐over study, and the case‐specular study. This paper describes a unified likelihood‐based approach to the analysis of such studies, and discusses extensions of these methods when a control group is available. The approach clarifies certain assumptions implicit in the methods, and helps contrast these assumptions to those underlying ordinary case‐control studies. There are several reasons to expect discrepancies between ordinary case‐control estimates and case‐distribution estimates; for example, case‐distribution estimates can be more sensitive to exposure misclassification. Some discrepancies are illustrated in an application to case‐specular data on wire codes and childhood cancer. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.