ReviewBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2012
Use of relative and absolute effect measures in reporting health inequalities: structured review.
Review in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 123 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
123 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Sex differences in the impact of extreme heat on cardiovascular disease outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2025Pooled it
- Systematic review of the effectiveness of the health inequalities strategy in England between 1999 and 2010.BMJ open · 2022Pooled it
- Achieving Sustained Virological Response in Hepatitis C Reduces the Long-Term Risk of Hepatocellular Carcinoma: An Updated Meta-Analysis Employing Relative and Absolute Outcome Measures.Clinical drug investigation · 2015Pooled it
- Changes in educational inequalities in knee and hip osteoarthritis surgery and non-surgery specialist care visits over time in Sweden.Osteoarthritis and cartilage open · 2024Trial
- Randomized trial of dentists' understanding: treatment benefit in absolute numbers vs relative risk reduction.Brazilian oral research · 2024Trial
- Trial
- Black-white disparity in disability among U.S. older adults: age, period, and cohort trends.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2014Trial
- Do population-based interventions widen or narrow socioeconomic inequalities? The case of breastfeeding promotion.International journal of epidemiology · 2014Trial
- Impact of selective evidence presentation on judgments of health inequality trends: an experimental study.PloS one · 2013Trial
- Counting what counts: Time for an annual statistical update on neurologic health equity.Equity neuroscience · 2026Article
- Three Decades of Socioeconomic Inequality in India's Breastfeeding Indicators, 1993-2021.Maternal & child nutrition · 2026Article
- Article
- Article
- Childhood appendectomy is linked with higher digestive, respiratory, and genitourinary disease risk but lower inflammatory bowel disease risk.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2026Article
- Inequalities in cancer mortality between people with and without disability: A nationwide data linkage study of 10 million adults in Australia.PLoS medicine · 2026Article
- Clinical and environmental factors, functional status, and multimorbidity-stratifying progression and prognosis of multimorbidity, frailty, and disability: the Age-It Research Program.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2025Article
- Socioeconomic inequities in alcohol-attributable mortality by sex/gender and age in Canada: a 13-year population-representative cohort study.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Integration of social determinants of health in quality indicators for colorectal cancer surgery: a scoping review.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Review
- Additive interactions of smoking with obesity on ischemic heart disease mortality: a national prospective cohort study in the United States.International journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Improving the reporting on health equity in observational research (STROBE-Equity): extension checklist and elaboration.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Article
63 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo examine the frequency of reporting of absolute and relative effect measures in health inequalities research.
designStructured review of selected general medical and public health journals. DATA SOURCES: 344 articles published during 2009 in American Journal of Epidemiology, American Journal of Public Health, BMJ, Epidemiology, International Journal of Epidemiology, JAMA, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Social Science and Medicine.
main outcome measuresFrequency and proportion of studies reporting absolute effect measures, relative effect measures, or both in abstract and full text; availability of absolute risks in studies reporting only relative effect measures.
results40% (138/344) of articles reported a measure of effect in the abstract; among these, 88% (122/138) reported only a relative measure, 9% (13/138) reported only an absolute measure, and 2% (3/138) reported both. 75% (258/344) of all articles reported only relative measures in the full text; among these, 46% (119/258) contained no information on absolute baseline risks that would facilitate calculation of absolute effect measures. 18% (61/344) of all articles reported only absolute measures in the full text, and 7% (25/344) reported both absolute and relative measures. These results were consistent across journals, exposures, and outcomes.
conclusionsHealth inequalities are most commonly reported using only relative measures of effect, which may influence readers' judgments of the magnitude, direction, significance, and implications of reported health inequalities.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.