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Some statistical methods for investigating the date of birth as a disease indicator
Author(s) -
Le Chap T.,
Liu Ping,
Lindgren Bruce R.,
Daly Kathleen A.,
Scott Giebink G.
Publication year - 2003
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/sim.1343
Subject(s) - otitis , statistics , event (particle physics) , disease , medicine , confidence interval , demography , mathematics , surgery , physics , quantum mechanics , sociology
Some methods of temporal statistics are presented and proposed for investigating the date of birth as a disease predictor. A subject's birthday is proposed to be used as a continuous variable with a circular distribution, a special type of interval scale without a true zero point. Three types of endpoints are then considered: a dichotomous endpoint; a continuous endpoint; and time‐to‐event. A study of otitis media is used for illustration. We found, for example, that children born in late winter to early spring tend to have higher cord blood pneumococcal antibody concentration and lower risk of disease as compared to those born in summer to early fall perhaps due largely to exposure to indoor pollution by pregnant mothers. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.