ArticleNature communications2021
Temporal bias in case-control design: preventing reliable predictions of the future.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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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.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
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- Dietary inflammatory index and risk of major digestive tract cancers: a GRADE-assessed systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis.BMC cancer · 2026Pooled it
- Predictive performance of risk prediction models for lung cancer incidence in Western and Asian countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Unmasking bias in artificial intelligence: a systematic review of bias detection and mitigation strategies in electronic health record-based models.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2024Pooled it
- Risk prediction models for diabetic nephropathy among type 2 diabetes patients in China: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Pooled it
- Body Composition and Prostate Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Pooled it
- Computable Phenotype for Identifying Undiagnosed Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome: Protocol for a Development and Validation Study.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Temporal Ambiguity Limits Interpretation of Endoscopic "Risk Markers" for Remnant Gastric Cancer: Comment on the Study by Ohashi et al.Journal of gastric cancer · 2026Article
- A deep learning model to dynamically predict cancer-associated thromboembolism in large-scale healthcare systems.NPJ digital medicine · 2026Article
- Why psychopathology research should avoid studying one mental disorder at a time: An intergenerational and developmental evidence base for understanding "p".Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2026Review
- Enhancing personalized suicide risk prediction for VA patients by integrating discrete natural language processing models.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Physiological foundation modeling for subclinical disease assessment: a prospective pilot.JAMIA open · 2026Article
- Early prediction of vasopressor initiation in ICU sepsis patients using an interpretable EHR-based ML model.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2025Article
- Comment on "Acute liver failure in patients admitted to the intensive care unit-A viennese retrospective single-center analysis".Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2025Article
- Timing and Predictive Value of Clinical Conditions Preceding Multiple Sclerosis in the UK Biobank.Annals of clinical and translational neurology · 2025Article
- The association of a polygenic lifespan score with the risk of common age-related diseases and mortality.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2025Article
- Prediction of early-onset bipolar using electronic health records.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2025Article
- Step-by-step causal analysis of EHRs to ground decision-making.PLOS digital health · 2025Article
- Commentary: Healthy Eating Index-2020 and bowel habits: a cross-sectional analysis of NHANES.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
One of the primary tools that researchers use to predict risk is the case-control study. We identify a flaw, temporal bias, that is specific to and uniquely associated with these studies that occurs when the study period is not representative of the data that clinicians have during the diagnostic process. Temporal bias acts to undermine the validity of predictions by over-emphasizing features close to the outcome of interest. We examine the impact of temporal bias across the medical literature, and highlight examples of exaggerated effect sizes, false-negative predictions, and replication failure. Given the ubiquity and practical advantages of case-control studies, we discuss strategies for estimating the influence of and preventing temporal bias where it exists.
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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.