ArticleAmerican journal of epidemiology2022
Causal and Associational Language in Observational Health Research: A Systematic Evaluation.
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 33 papers, 2 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
33 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Robustness of reported postacute health outcomes in children with SARS-CoV-2 infection: a systematic review.Archives of disease in childhood · 2023Pooled it
- Positive Parenting and Early Childhood Cognition: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2023Pooled it
- Evaluating the effectiveness of systemic heparin during arteriovenous fistula creation by emulating a target trial.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Trial
- Methodological Considerations for Studies in Sport and Exercise Science with Women as Participants Part II: Guidance for Applied Studies in Elite Female Athletes.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Article
- Specific versus non-specific hospital-based spine diagnoses in children and adolescents: a nationwide register-based cohort study.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2026Article
- "Causality or correlation?" Reassessing the association between childhood sport participation and oppositional-defiant behavior.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Article
- Causality and Association: Two Terms to Use and Interpret Judiciously.Indian dermatology online journal · 2026Article
- Causal Inference Tools for Pharmacovigilance: Using Causal Graphs to Identify and Address Biases in Disproportionality Analysis.Drug safety · 2026Article
- The Risks of Misunderstanding the Term "Risk Factor": A Primer with Suggestions to Improve Sports Medicine.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Review
- Comparative Analysis of Prescriptions and Pharmacy Services in Internet-Based Psychiatric Hospital During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Cross-Sectional Observational Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Observational
- Article
- Overview of Quantitative Research.Family medicine · 2026Review
- Conflation of prediction and causality in the TB literature.IJTLD open · 2025Article
- Causal clarity in statistical software.International journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Article
- What can be learned when multiple analysts arrive at different estimates.European journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Sports Metaresearch: An Emerging Discipline of Sport Science and Medicine.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Review
- Use of Stacked Proportional Bar Graphs ("Grotta Bars") in Observational Neurology Research: A Meta-Research Study.Neurology · 2025Article
- Inconsistent consistency: evaluating the well-defined intervention assumption in applied epidemiological research.International journal of epidemiology · 2025Review
- Estimating the Effect of Adhering to the Recommendations of the 2019 Canada's Food Guide on Health Outcomes in Older Adults: Protocol for a Target Trial Emulation.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
49 authors.
Funding
Abstract
We estimated the degree to which language used in the high-profile medical/public health/epidemiology literature implied causality using language linking exposures to outcomes and action recommendations; examined disconnects between language and recommendations; identified the most common linking phrases; and estimated how strongly linking phrases imply causality. We searched for and screened 1,170 articles from 18 high-profile journals (65 per journal) published from 2010-2019. Based on written framing and systematic guidance, 3 reviewers rated the degree of causality implied in abstracts and full text for exposure/outcome linking language and action recommendations. Reviewers rated the causal implication of exposure/outcome linking language as none (no causal implication) in 13.8%, weak in 34.2%, moderate in 33.2%, and strong in 18.7% of abstracts. The implied causality of action recommendations was higher than the implied causality of linking sentences for 44.5% or commensurate for 40.3% of articles. The most common linking word in abstracts was "associate" (45.7%). Reviewers' ratings of linking word roots were highly heterogeneous; over half of reviewers rated "association" as having at least some causal implication. This research undercuts the assumption that avoiding "causal" words leads to clarity of interpretation in medical research.
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.