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RE: An alternate characterization of hazard in occupational epidemiology: Years of life lost per years worked. Am J Ind Med 42:1–10, 2002
Author(s) -
Morfeld Peter
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
american journal of industrial medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1097-0274
pISSN - 0271-3586
DOI - 10.1002/ajim.10205
Subject(s) - epidemiology , medicine , life expectancy , counterfactual thinking , hazard , demography , hazard ratio , gerontology , statistics , environmental health , confidence interval , population , psychology , pathology , mathematics , social psychology , chemistry , organic chemistry , sociology
To the Editor: Park et al. [2002] proposed an alternate characterization of hazard in occupational epidemiology by estimating the excess years of life lost. Roughly speaking, they used an approach based on estimated numbers of excess cases among the exposed multiplied by the potential life expectancy of these cases at their age of death. Although I agree with Park et al. that occupational epidemiology should better report failure time statistics as effect measures rather than risk statistics alone [cmp. Greenland and Robins, 1988], I have to point out, with apologies, that the approach chosen by Park et al. [2002] appears to be potentially biased. A simple example based on counterfactual thinking [Maldonado and Greenland, 2002] may help to demonstrate the problems involved.