ArticleEuropean journal of epidemiology2009
Variable selection: current practice in epidemiological studies.
Article in European journal of epidemiology, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 101 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
101 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A systematic review of air pollution exposure and brain structure and function during development.Environmental research · 2025Pooled it
- Causal Model Building in the Context of Cardiac Rehabilitation: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- Comparison of Continuous Subcutaneous Insulin Infusion and Multiple Daily Injections in Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes: A Meta-Analysis and Prospective Cohort Study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2021Pooled it
- Patient centred variables with univariate associations with unplanned ICU admission: a systematic review.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2019Pooled it
- The Effects of Interrupting Sitting Time on Affect and State Anxiety in Children of Healthy Weight and Overweight: A Randomized Crossover Trial.Pediatric exercise science · 2020Trial
- The Impact of Adherence to Cancer Prevention Recommendations on Cancer Incidence and Mortality in a Cohort of Canadian Adults.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2026Article
- Classifying healthcare facilities as predictors of COVID-19 mortality rates in US counties (2020-2021).Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Molecular predictors of incident frailty: a systematic review and critical appraisal of longitudinal evidence.GeroScience · 2026Review
- Response to the Letter to the Editor Regarding "Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Among Physicians and Senior Medical Students in Jordan" [Response To Letter].Advances in medical education and practice · 2026Article
- Covariate selection strategies and estimands - a review of current practice of risk factor analysis from a causal perspective.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Review
- Comparison of revision surgery after implant-based breast reconstruction between smooth, textured, and polyurethane-covered implants: results from the Dutch Breast Implant Registry.The British journal of surgery · 2025Article
- Association of optimism and social support with health-related quality of life among Australian women cancer survivors - A cohort study.Asia-Pacific journal of clinical oncology · 2025Article
- Home, but Homebound After Traumatic Brain Injury: Risk Factors and Associations With Nursing Home Entry and Death.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Variable selection methods for descriptive modeling.PloS one · 2025Article
- A Systematic Review of Air Pollution Exposure and Brain Structure and Function during Development.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- Development of a diagnostic predictive model for determining child stunting in Malawi: a comparative analysis of variable selection approaches.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Article
- Risk factors associated with indicators of dehydration among migrant farmworkers.Environmental research · 2024Article
- Access to civil justice as a social determinant of health: a legal epidemiological cross-sectional study.International journal for equity in health · 2024Article
- Response to Letters to the Editor regarding "Analysis of the factors contributing to residual weakness after sugammadex administration in pediatric patients under 2 years of age".Paediatric anaesthesia · 2024Article
- Observational
41 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Selection of covariates is among the most controversial and difficult tasks in epidemiologic analysis. Correct variable selection addresses the problem of confounding in etiologic research and allows unbiased estimation of probabilities in prognostic studies. The aim of this commentary is to assess how often different variable selection techniques were applied in contemporary epidemiologic analysis. It was of particular interest to see whether modern methods such as shrinkage or penalized regression were used in recent publications. Stepwise selection methods remained the predominant method for variable selection in publications in epidemiological journals in 2008. Shrinkage methods were not used in any of the reviewed articles. Editors, reviewers and authors have insufficiently promoted the new, less controversial approaches of variable selection in the biomedical literature, whereas statisticians may not have adequately addressed the method's feasibility.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.