Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
Volume 55, Issue 6 , Pages 588-592 , June 2002

Estimating the contribution of individual risk factors to disease in a person with more than one risk factor

  • Patrick McElduff

      Affiliations

    • Evidence for Population Health Unit, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT, UK
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Tel.+44(0)161-275-5953; fax: +44-(0)161-275-7712.(P. McElduff)
  • ,
  • John Attia

      Affiliations

    • The Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, 2300 NSW, Australia
  • ,
  • Ben Ewald

      Affiliations

    • The Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, 2300 NSW, Australia
  • ,
  • Jill Cockburn

      Affiliations

    • Behavioural Science in Relation to Medicine, School of Population Health Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle 2308 NSW, Australia
  • ,
  • Richard Heller

      Affiliations

    • Evidence for Population Health Unit, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT, UK

Received 13 March 2001 ,Revised 24 September 2001 ,Accepted 4 November 2001.

References 

  1. McLaughlin JK, Lindblad P, Mellemgard A, McCredie M, Mandel JS, Schlehofer B, et al. International renal-cell cancer study. I. Tobacco use. Int J Cancer. 1995;60:194–198
  2. Mellemgard A, Lindblad P, Schlehofer B, Bergstrom R, Mandel JS, McCredie M, et al. International renal-cell cancer study. III. Role of weight, height, physical activity, and use of amphetamines. Int J Cancer. 1995;60:350–354
  3. Mandel JS, McLaughlin JK, Schlehofer B, Mellemgard A, Helmert U, Lindblad P, et al. International renal cell cancer study. IV. Occupation. Int J Cancer. 1995;61:601–605
  4. Greenland S. Relation of probability of causation to relative risk and doubling dose (a methodologic error that has become a social problem). Am J Public Health. 1999;89:1166–1169
  5. Greenland S, Robins JM. Conceptual problems in the definition and interpretation of attributable fractions. Am J Epidemiol. 1988;128:1185–1197
  6. Sturmans F. Mulder PGH, Valkenburg HA. Estimation of the possible effect of interventive measures in the area of ischemic heart diseases by the attributable risk percentage. Am J Epidemiol. 1977;105:281–289
  7. Bruzzi P, Green SB, Byar DP, Brinton LA, Schairer C. Estimating the population attributable risk for multiple risk factors using case-control data. Am J Epidemiol. 1985;122:904–914
  8. Walter SD. Attributable risk in practice. Am J Epidemiol. 1998;148:411–413
  9. Davies HTO, Crombie IK, Tavakoli M. When can odds ratios mislead?. BMJ. 1998;316:989–991
  10. Beyea J, Greenland S. The importance of specifying the underlying biologic model in estimating the probability of causation. Health Phys. 1999;76(3):269–274
  11. Rose G. Sick individuals and sick populations. Int J Epidemiol. 1985;14:32–38

PII: S0895-4356(02)00388-8

Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
Volume 55, Issue 6 , Pages 588-592 , June 2002