Invited commentary: the action in the interaction and exposure modification.
The study of disease variability in populations is a goal of modern epidemiology. Because most common diseases arise out of a combination of factors and events (exposures, heritability, comorbidities, and chance), developing simple models of characterizing joint events is a daunting task. Dr. Weinberg argues successfully in this issue of the Journal (Am J Epidemiol. 2012;175(7):602-605) that additive null models can capture pure forms of independent causal effects in studies of rare conditions. Moreover, the concept of exposure modification, which characterizes most gene-environment interactions reported to date, is introduced. More cross-talk between biologists and epidemiologists is needed to tackle key issues in chronic disease etiology, and the argument for the use of parsimonious joint models in epidemiology is convincing.
Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. dchris@hsph.harvard.edu
David C
DC
Christiani
D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D006801:Humans