Casuality aka causation & association

Non-casual associations
1. 1. Chance associations that can occur at random
2. 2. Artifactual associations that occur through some error or defect in the design or execution of a study.
3. 3. Indirect associations in which an exposure is associated with an outcome but through a confounding variable.
have ruled out the likelihood of any of these non-causal explanations for an apparent association
1. one is left with one additional possibility: The association is causal.
  1. can finally accept the evidence from a research article you need to check if the researchers have discussed their significant results in terms of causality.
presence of an association between A and B does not tell you anything at all about:
1. a) The presence of the causality
2. b) The direction of causality.
“To show that A has caused B (rather than B causing A, or A and B both being caused by C [a confounder]), you need more than a correlation coefficient” (….or a RR)6. Bradford Hill “tests for causation” are outlined in the box below (

Resource summary

	Created by shirley.ha about 11 years ago