In the multifactorial model of disease transmission, why is the rank correlation sensitive to choice of bivariate distribution?
The multifactorial model uses a dichotomization (ill vs. well) that occurs in the extreme tail of a bivariate distribution. The crudeness of this is responsible for rank correlation - which is a summary statistic calculated from the whole bivariate distribution - being sensitive to the choice of the bivariate distributional form.
Hutchinson
T P
TP
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney, N.S.W., Australia.
D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D018562:Disease Transmission, Infectious; D006801:Humans; D007046:Hysteria / Q000453:epidemiology; D015233:Models, Statistical; D015995:Prevalence