ArticleInternational journal of epidemiology2016
Triangulation in aetiological epidemiology.
Article in International journal of epidemiology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 692 papers, 13 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
692 citing papers in PubMed, 13 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A review of the relationship between dimensions of alcohol consumption and the burden of disease: 2026 update including Mendelian randomisation studies.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Pooled it
- Prevalence of Gastroesophageal reflux disease in patients with Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Adiposity and cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis.Nature metabolism · 2026Pooled it
- Smoking, alcohol consumption, and psoriasis risk: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of observational studies.Frontiers in public health · 2026Pooled it
- Evidence for Causal Links Between Known Modifiable Risk Factors and Dementia: A Systematic Review of Mendelian Randomisation Studies.European journal of neurology · 2025Pooled it
- Using Mendelian randomization analyses in osteoarthritis: state of art and future perspectives.Annals of medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Positive and negative parenting practices and offspring disruptive behavior: A meta-analytic review of quasi-experimental evidence.Psychological bulletin · 2025Pooled it
- Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology using Mendelian randomization (STROBE-MR): a Korean translation of explanation and elaboration.Ewha medical journal · 2025Guideline
- Genetics of monozygotic twins reveals the impact of environmental sensitivity on psychiatric and neurodevelopmental phenotypes.Nature human behaviour · 2025Pooled it
- Do prenatal factors shape the risk for dementia?: A systematic review of the epidemiological evidence for the prenatal origins of dementia.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The effects of sunlight exposure on mortality: a systematic review of epidemiological studies.NIHR open research · 2025Pooled it
- Associations between insomnia and cardiovascular diseases: a meta-review and meta-analysis of observational and Mendelian randomization studies.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2024Pooled it
- What happens at the postpartum visit? Discordance between patient-reported and electronic medical record-documented postpartum care.Annals of epidemiology · 2026Trial
- Leisure-Time Physical Activity on Age-Modelled Trajectories of Body Mass Index and Obesity Risk Throughout Life: Multivariable Regression and Mendelian Randomization Analyses Using Electronic Health Record Data From the CORDELIA-Catalunya Study.Diabetes, obesity & metabolism · 2026Article
- An Epidemiology-Constrained Framework for Mechanistic Hypothesis Restriction and Prioritization in Complex Disease.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2026Article
- Big data and psychiatry: advances, constraints and future directions.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2026Article
- Triangulating Evidence on Serum Uric Acid and Cancer Risk: Consistent Inverse Associations With Lung Cancer.Cancer science · 2026Article
- Acute lack of sunlight exposure is associated with poorer cognitive test performance: evidence from two national cohorts in the United Kingdom.Photochemical & photobiological sciences : Official journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology · 2026Article
- Mobile Phone Call Duration and Cardiovascular Outcomes: Prospective and Genetic Evidence on a Potential Depression-Related Pathway.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
632 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Triangulation is the practice of obtaining more reliable answers to research questions through integrating results from several different approaches, where each approach has different key sources of potential bias that are unrelated to each other. With respect to causal questions in aetiological epidemiology, if the results of different approaches all point to the same conclusion, this strengthens confidence in the finding. This is particularly the case when the key sources of bias of some of the approaches would predict that findings would point in opposite directions if they were due to such biases. Where there are inconsistencies, understanding the key sources of bias of each approach can help to identify what further research is required to address the causal question. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how triangulation might be used to improve causal inference in aetiological epidemiology. We propose a minimum set of criteria for use in triangulation in aetiological epidemiology, summarize the key sources of bias of several approaches and describe how these might be integrated within a triangulation framework. We emphasize the importance of being explicit about the expected direction of bias within each approach, whenever this is possible, and seeking to identify approaches that would be expected to bias the true causal effect in different directions. We also note the importance, when comparing results, of taking account of differences in the duration and timing of exposures. We provide three examples to illustrate these points.
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.