title: Family history evaluation in epidemiologic studies; an evaluation of bias in the conventional methods and a proposal of a new one.
abstract: We discuss problems of conventional methods to evaluate family histories as risk factors in epidemiologic studies, and propose a new one. In the proposal, incidence rates of the disease interested among family members are treated as exposure levels. Besides, we show the quantitative difference between the results obtained by the conventional methods and the new one using models. Because of not so much information required for the new method, we recommend it even though the difference was not so large.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Jichi Medical School, Tochigi, Japan.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tanihara
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ojima
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yanagawa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015982:Bias; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012307:Risk Factors; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality; D015996:Survival Rate