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Models of the healthy worker effect in industrial cohorts
Author(s) -
Bell C. M. J.,
Coleman D. A.
Publication year - 1987
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.4780060805
Subject(s) - duration (music) , selection (genetic algorithm) , cohort , econometrics , cohort study , population , demography , medicine , psychology , statistics , computer science , economics , environmental health , mathematics , machine learning , art , literature , sociology
The patterns of standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) with duration of follow‐up and duration of service which are characteristic of the healthy worker effect in occupational cohort studies have been simulated using models of selection and survivor effects. The models support current theories about the population dynamics which underlie the selection effect but highlight inadequacies in our understanding of the survivor effect. Several possible models were tested and methods of generating appropriate data are discussed. It is important that the healthy worker effect should be better understood as it can present so large a problem in the interpretation of occupational risk estimates.