Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29391741›Full record

ReviewIndian journal of occupational and environmental medicine

Healthy Worker Effect Phenomenon: Revisited with Emphasis on Statistical Methods - A Review.

Ritam Chowdhury, Divyang Shah, Abhishek R Payal

Abstract readReview
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Review in Indian journal of occupational and environmental medicine. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 170 papers, 18 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
170citing papers in PubMed, 18 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

170 citing papers in PubMed, 18 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

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  9. Prevalence and symptoms of Long Covid-19 in the workplace.Occupational medicine (Oxford, England) · 2025
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  11. Benzene Exposure and Lung Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Human Studies.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024
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  14. The Effect of Fire Smoke Exposure on Firefighters' Lung Function: A Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022
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110 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Ritam ChowdhuryDepartment of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Divyang ShahHealth and Medical Services, Larsen and Toubro Limited, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Abhishek R PayalMassachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Known since 1885 but studied systematically only in the past four decades, the healthy worker effect (HWE) is a special form of selection bias common to occupational cohort studies. The phenomenon has been under debate for many years with respect to its impact, conceptual approach (confounding, selection bias, or both), and ways to resolve or account for its effect. The effect is not uniform across age groups, gender, race, and types of occupations and nor is it constant over time. Hence, assessing HWE and accounting for it in statistical analyses is complicated and requires sophisticated methods. Here, we review the HWE, factors affecting it, and methods developed so far to deal with it.

Indexed as

Causal inferencehealthy worker effectoccupational epidemiologyselection bias

Identifiers

PMID29391741
PMCPMC5763838

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-SA
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.