ArticleAmerican journal of epidemiology2022
On the Need to Revitalize Descriptive Epidemiology.
Article in American journal of epidemiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers, 4 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
75 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Incidence of physical non-communicable disease in people who have experienced imprisonment compared with the general population in high-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2026Pooled it
- Prevalence and risk factors of atopic dermatitis in Chinese children aged 1-7 years: a systematic review and meta analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2024Pooled it
- Clinical risk factors of adverse outcomes among women with COVID-19 in the pregnancy and postpartum period: a sequential, prospective meta-analysis.American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · 2023Pooled it
- Long distance airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: rapid systematic review.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2022Pooled it
- Which lumbar spinal stenosis patients will improve with nonsurgical treatment? A secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2025Trial
- Eating disorder severity and treatment outcome across race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status: Intersectional inequities in a clinical sample.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2026Article
- Labor market participation among patients referred to occupational medicine with low-back pain: a Danish nationwide register-based cohort study.Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health · 2026Article
- Albumin redox status in the context of kidney transplantation - an observational, pilot study.BMC nephrology · 2026Observational
- Cancer Screening Among Older Adults Above 75 Years of Age According to Health Status: A Population-Based Study.Journal of general internal medicine · 2026Article
- Increasing Burden of Early-Onset Cancers: Disentangling the Contributions of Changes in Risk from Demographic Shifts.Cancer research communications · 2026Article
- Demographic and Mental Health Predictors of HIV Care Outcomes Among Women Veterans.AIDS and behavior · 2026Article
- Personality development from early to middle adulthood in the general population and those with mental health difficulties.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Estimation of Sexual and Gender Diversity Among People Aged 15 Years and Older in Japan: A Descriptive Epidemiological Study Using a Nationwide Cross-Sectional Internet Survey.Archives of sexual behavior · 2026Article
- Treatment Utilization after Uterine Fibroid Diagnosis by Race and Ethnicity.Journal of women's health (2002) · 2026Article
- Cardiac monitoring in adolescent and young adult cancer patients treated with anthracyclines: a longitudinal descriptive study.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Article
- A Framework for Thinking About the Potential Public Health Impact of Epidemiologic Research.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Incorporating polygenic risk scores and social determinants of health across populations: Considerations and best practices in research.American journal of human genetics · 2026Review
- Post-traumatic stress disorder and adverse pregnancy outcomes: sexual orientation disparities in a prospective cohort study.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- Patterns of antidepressant prescribing around pregnancy: a descriptive analysis using Clinical Practice Research Datalink GOLD.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2026Article
- Whose Knowledge Counts? Considering Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Description, Prediction, and Causal Inference in Oral Epidemiology.Advances in dental research · 2026Article
15 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
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Nearly every introductory epidemiology course begins with a focus on person, place, and time, the key components of descriptive epidemiology. And yet in our experience, introductory epidemiology courses were the last time we spent any significant amount of training time focused on descriptive epidemiology. This gave us the impression that descriptive epidemiology does not suffer from bias and is less impactful than causal epidemiology. Descriptive epidemiology may also suffer from a lack of prestige in academia and may be more difficult to fund. We believe this does a disservice to the field and slows progress towards goals of improving population health and ensuring equity in health. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak and subsequent coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic have highlighted the importance of descriptive epidemiology in responding to serious public health crises. In this commentary, we make the case for renewed focus on the importance of descriptive epidemiology in the epidemiology curriculum using SARS-CoV-2 as a motivating example. The framework for error we use in etiological research can be applied in descriptive research to focus on both systematic and random error. We use the current pandemic to illustrate differences between causal and descriptive epidemiology and areas where descriptive epidemiology can have an important impact.
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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.