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The limits of precision in risk-factor epidemiology, and some practical lessons in communicating it
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

The limits of precision in risk-factor epidemiology, and some practical lessons in communicating it

Carl V. Phillips and Igor Burstyn
Dialogues in health, Forthcoming
Aug 2026
Featured in Collection :   Drexel's Newest Publications
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dialog.2026.100339View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Authors and consumers of epidemiology research need to understand just how imprecise the results of epidemiology studies are. As a start on this, authors need to stop implicitly claiming orders-of-magnitude more precision than is warranted by their methods and data. The present paper briefly summarizes why everyone should understand this, and provides a bit of advice to authors about reducing incorrect and potentially harmful claims of precision.

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