HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Marshall, J. R Articles by Chen, Z. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Marshall, J. R Articles by Chen, Z. Agricola Articles by Marshall, J. R Articles by Chen, Z.

Diet and health risk: risk patterns and disease-specific associations ^{1 ,2}

Whether such epidemiologic descriptors as relative risk, dose response, and threshold points convey meaningful information is often the subject of debate. Thus, using these descriptors to juxtapose the many disease-specific effects of nutritional exposures becomes problematic. In this article it is argued that epidemiologic patterns of disease-exposure associations must be interpreted in light of the profound imprecision of exposure assessment that characterizes nutritional epidemiology. In general, this imprecision leads to substantial attenuation of disease-exposure associations, such that relative risk, dose response, and the extent to which there are thresholds in disease-exposure associations can be seriously underestimated. Linking disease-specific relative risks, especially when derived from different studies with different methods of assessing exposure, is made increasingly difficult. The most critical tasks for lessening bias in these epidemiologic descriptors are first, to lessen imprecision in measuring exposures, and second, to adjust association estimates for attenuation due to measurement imprecision.

Key Words: Epidemiology • relative risk • attributable risk • measurement error • reliability • validity • disease • exposure

This article has been cited by other articles:

				T. Byers, B. Lyle, and W. Participants Summary statement Am. J. Clinical Nutrition, June 1, 1999; 69 (6): 1365S - 1367S. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]