ArticleEmerging themes in epidemiology2016
A distributional approach to obtain adjusted comparisons of proportions of a population at risk.
Article in Emerging themes in epidemiology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effect of dexamethasone exposure on the neonatal unit on the school age lung function of children born very prematurely.PloS one · 2018Trial
- Adherence to the EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet during pregnancy and associations with preterm birth and infant size: a prospective analysis from the New Hampshire Birth Cohort.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Article
- Making Statistics Clinically Meaningful.Clinical epidemiology · 2026Review
- Factors related to sleep quality in the adult population of Shahroud; Comparison of adjusted distributional and multivariable logistic regression analysis.Global epidemiology · 2025Article
- Investigating changes in mental illness stigma and discrimination after the Time to Change programme in England.BJPsych open · 2024Article
- Do small effects matter more in vulnerable populations? an investigation using Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) cohorts.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Influence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia on lung function in adolescents who were born extremely prematurely.Pediatric pulmonology · 2022Article
- Predictive Utility of Composite Child Feeding Indices (CCFIs) for Child Nutritional Status: Comparative Analyses for the Most Suitable Formula for Constructing an Optimum CCFI.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Minimal clinically important difference in means in vulnerable populations: challenges and solutions.BMJ open · 2021Review
- Article
- Review
- Mental illness stigma after a decade of Time to Change England: inequalities as targets for further improvement.European journal of public health · 2020Article
- Postnatal dexamethasone exposure and lung function in adolescents born very prematurely.PloS one · 2020Observational
- Using marginal standardisation to estimate relative risk without dichotomising continuous outcomes.BMC medical research methodology · 2019Article
- (Re-) conceptualising vulnerability as a part of risk in global health emergency response: updating the pressure and release model for global health emergencies.Emerging themes in epidemiology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDichotomisation of continuous data has statistical drawbacks such as loss of power but may be useful in epidemiological research to define high risk individuals.
methodsWe extend a methodology for the presentation of comparison of proportions derived from a comparison of means for a continuous outcome to reflect the relationship between a continuous outcome and covariates in a linear (mixed) model without losing statistical power. The so called "distributional method" is described and using perinatal data for illustration, results from the distributional method are compared to those of logistic regression and to quantile regression for three different outcomes.
resultsEstimates obtained using the distributional method for the comparison of proportions are consistently more precise than those obtained using logistic regression. For one of the three outcomes the estimates obtained from the distributional method and from logistic regression disagreed highlighting that the relationships between outcome and covariate differ conceptually between the two models.
conclusionWhen an outcome follows the required condition of distribution shift between exposure groups, the results of a linear regression model can be followed by the corresponding comparison of proportions at risk. This dual approach provides more precise estimates than logistic regression thus avoiding the drawback of the usual dichotomisation of continuous outcomes.
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.