Commentary: Epidemiologists have debated representativeness for more than 40 years--has the time come to move on?

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

44 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

1. Mendelian randomization analysis of 37 clinical factors and coronary artery disease in East Asian and European populations.Genome medicine · 2022
   Pooled it
2. Comparison of risk factor associations in UK Biobank against representative, general population based studies with conventional response rates: prospective cohort study and individual participant meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2020
   Pooled it
3. Establishment of a cohort for deep phenotyping of the immune response to influenza vaccination among elderly individuals recruited from the general population.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2017
   Trial
4. "Racism still exists": a public health intervention using racism "countermarketing" outdoor advertising in a Black neighborhood.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2014
   Trial
5. Discrimination and risk of spontaneous abortion in a preconception cohort study.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2026
   Article
6. A preconception cohort study of historical mortgage lending discrimination and present-day fecundability.American journal of epidemiology · 2026
   Article
7. Revisiting representativeness.International journal of epidemiology · 2025
   Article
8. Redefining Representativeness of a Sample in Causal Terms.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2025
   Article
9. Assessing the representativeness of large medical data using population stability index.BMC medical research methodology · 2025
   Article
10. Defining representativeness of study samples in medical and population health research.BMJ medicine · 2023
    Article
11. Generalizability and representativeness: Considerations for internet-based research on substance use behaviors.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2022
    Article
12. Verbal working memory and processing speed: Correlations with the severity of attention deficit and emotional dysregulation in adult ADHD.Journal of neuropsychology · 2022
    Observational
13. Young age at diabetes diagnosis amplifies the effect of diabetes duration on risk of chronic kidney disease: a prospective cohort study.Diabetologia · 2021
    Article
14. Generalizability of findings from a clinical sample to a community-based sample: A comparison of ADNI and ARIC.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2021
    Article
15. Integrating Electronic Health Record, Cancer Registry, and Geospatial Data to Study Lung Cancer in Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Ethnic Groups.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2021
    Article
16. Prevalence of criminal convictions in Norwegian adult ADHD outpatients and associations with ADHD symptom severity and emotional dysregulation.BMC psychiatry · 2021
    Article
17. Use of Alcohol and Addictive Drugs During the COVID-19 Outbreak in Norway: Associations With Mental Health and Pandemic-Related Problems.Frontiers in public health · 2021
    Article
18. Personality traits and the risk of becoming lonely in old age: A 5-year follow-up study.Health and quality of life outcomes · 2020
    Article
19. On the efficacy of online drug surveys during the time of COVID-19.Substance abuse · 2020
    Article
20. Assessment of Relative Utility of Underlying vs Contributory Causes of Death.JAMA network open · 2019
    Article

Corrections and comments

• Commented on by
  Rebuttal: When it comes to scientific inference, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.2013
• Comment on
  Why representativeness should be avoided.2013

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

Abstract

PubMed holds no abstract for this paper.

Indexed as