Applying Quantitative Bias Analysis to Epidemiologic Data. Statistics for Biology and Health

This text provides the first-ever compilation of bias analysis methods for use with epidemiologic data. It guides the reader through the planning stages of bias analysis, including the design of validation studies and the collection of validity data from other sources. Three chapters present methods for corrections to address selection bias, uncontrolled confounding, and classification errors. Subsequent chapters extend these methods to multidimensional bias analysis, probabilistic bias analysis, and multiple bias analysis. The text concludes with a chapter on presentation and interpretation of bias analysis results. Although techniques for bias analysis have been available for decades, these methods are considered difficult to implement. This text not only gathers the methods into one cohesive and organized presentation, it also explains the methods in a consistent fashion and provides customizable spreadsheets to implement the solutions. By downloading the spreadsheets (available at links provided in the text), readers can follow the examples in the text and then modify the spreadsheet to complete their own bias analyses. Readers without experience using quantitative bias analysis will be able to design, implement, and understand bias analyses that address the major threats to the validity of epidemiologic research. More experienced analysts will value the compilation of bias analysis methods and links to software tools that facilitate their projects. TOC:Introduction, objectives and an alternative.- A guide to implementing quantitative bias analysis.- Data sources for bias analysis.- Selection bias.- Unmeasured and unknown confounders.- Misclassification.- Multidimensional bias analysis.- Probabilistic bias analysis.- Multiple bias modeling.- Presentation and inference.