Representativeness issues in epidemiological studies

PAN Xiong-fei; WANG Yi; YE Yi; PAN An

doi:10.16462/j.cnki.zhjbkz.2019.01.001

Volume 23 Issue 1

Jan. 2019

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PAN Xiong-fei, WANG Yi, YE Yi, PAN An. Representativeness issues in epidemiological studies[J]. CHINESE JOURNAL OF DISEASE CONTROL & PREVENTION, 2019, 23(1): 1-4. doi: 10.16462/j.cnki.zhjbkz.2019.01.001

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PAN Xiong-fei, WANG Yi, YE Yi, PAN An. Representativeness issues in epidemiological studies[J]. CHINESE JOURNAL OF DISEASE CONTROL & PREVENTION, 2019, 23(1): 1-4. doi: 10.16462/j.cnki.zhjbkz.2019.01.001

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Representativeness issues in epidemiological studies

doi: 10.16462/j.cnki.zhjbkz.2019.01.001

Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China

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Corresponding author: PAN An, E-mail: panan@hust.edu.cn
Received Date: 2018-12-21
Publish Date: 2019-01-10

Abstract

Abstract

Representativeness has long been a contentious topic in epidemiology. The review starts with defining representativeness in epidemiology and describing fundamental epidemiological concepts including study population, source population, target population, internal validity, and external validity. In addition, it elaborates the role and practicality of representativeness in four major epidemiological study designs including cross-sectional, cohort, case-control, and intervention studies. In summary, representativeness is an important consideration in cross-sectional studies of investigating disease or health status in the target population, but cannot be overstated in epidemiological studies for causal inferences regarding exposure-outcome relationships or intervention effects.
- Epidemiology,
- Sample,
- Representativeness

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References(28)

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