ArticleAmerican journal of epidemiology2025
An evolved interpretation of Austin Bradford Hill's causal viewpoints and their influence on epidemiologic methods.
Article in American journal of epidemiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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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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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Choosing real-world data for clinical and epidemiological research: methodological lessons from NHIRD and TriNetX-A narrative review.Annals of medicine · 2026Review
- Causal Inference in Non-Allergic Asthma Associated with Obesity: Application of the Bradford Hill Viewpoints to a Complex Epidemiological Association.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Long-term risk of depression after sevoflurane versus propofol anesthesia: a global propensity score-matched cohort study.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Pathogenesis and Risk Factors of Post-Infectious Bronchiolitis Obliterans in Children: A Focus on Adenovirus and Mycoplasma Infections.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Is polycystic ovary syndrome associated with uterine malformations? A systematic review using Bradford Hill's causality framework.Human reproduction open · 2026Review
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
In 1965, Sir Austin Bradford Hill articulated nine viewpoints for evaluating whether a body of evidence about the relationship between an exposure and outcome should be interpreted causally. In this commentary, we highlight a selection of the ways in which these viewpoints have had an impact on the field of epidemiology in terms of methods development, study design, and interpretation of results. Additionally, we opine on how the viewpoints relate to our understanding of basic epidemiologic concepts-for example, our choice of absolute or relative measures of effect, our evolving understanding of the role of context in the generalizability of study results, and modern epistemologies for causal inference (ie, the potential outcomes framework and graphical causal models). Hill cautioned his audience that evidence should be weighed according to the policy choice it would inform and the context in which that policy would be implemented. We root our remarks in considerations of the public health impact of our conclusions about the causal nature of an observed relationship.
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