Null misinterpretation in statistical testing and its impact on health risk assessment

Preventive Medicine

Volumn 53, Issue 4-5, 2011, Pages 225-228

  Greenland, Sander ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Bayesian methods; Health assessment; Hypothesis testing; Null testing; P value; Prosecutor's fallacy; Significance tests; Statistical testing

Indexed keywords

GABAPENTIN;

ARTICLE; BAYES THEOREM; CONFIDENCE INTERVAL; HEALTH HAZARD; PRIORITY JOURNAL; PROBABILITY; RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL (TOPIC); RISK ASSESSMENT; STATISTICAL ANALYSIS; STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE; SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR; SYSTEMATIC ERROR;

BAYES THEOREM; BIAS (EPIDEMIOLOGY); DATA INTERPRETATION, STATISTICAL; HUMANS; PROBABILITY; RISK ASSESSMENT;

EID: 80955142758     PISSN: 00917435     EISSN: 10960260     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2011.08.010     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. Berger J.O., Sellke T. Testing a point null hypothesis: the irreconcilability of p values and evidence (with discussion). J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 1987, 82:112-139.
2. Cox D.R. The Planning of Experiments 1958, Wiley, New York.
3. Cox L.A. Risk Analysis of Complex and Uncertain Systems 2009, Springer, New York.
4. Gart J.J., Thomas D.G. Numerical results on approximate confidence limits for the odds ratio. J. R. Stat. Soc. B 1972, 34:441-447.
5. Gibbons, R.D., 2008. Declaration of 23 April 2008 by Robert Gibbons, Ph.D. in re Neurontin Marketing, Sales and Liability Litigation, U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, p. 3 (Case 1:04-cv-10981-PBS, Document 1241, Filed 04/25/2008).
6. Good I.J. Good Thinking 1983, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
7. Goodman S.N. A dirty dozen: twelve P-value misconceptions. Semin. Hematol. 2008, 45:135-140.
8. Goodman S.N., Berlin J. The use of predicted confidence intervals when planning experiments and the misuse of power when interpreting results. Ann. Intern. Med. 1994, 121:200-206.
9. Goodman S.N., Greenland S. Why most published research findings are false: problems in the analysis. PLoS Med. 2007, 4(4):e168. (doi:10.1371/journal. pmed.0040168, accessed 3 May 2011 (reply by Ioannnidis, 2007 at PLoS Med 4(6): e215. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040215, accessed 3 May 2011).
10. Greenland S. The need for critical appraisal of expert witnesses in epidemiology and statistics. Wake Forest Law Rev. 2004, 39:291-310.
11. Greenland S. Bayesian perspectives for epidemiologic research. I. Foundations and basic methods (with comment and reply). Int. J. Epidemiol. 2006, 35:765-778.
12. Greenland S. Declaration of 11th March 2008 by Sander Greenland, Dr.P.H. re: Neurontin marketing, sales practices, and product liability litigation, United States District Court, District of Massachusetts, MDL Docket no. 1629, Master File no. 04-10981 2008.
13. Greenland S. Dealing with uncertainty about investigator bias: disclosure is informative. J. Epidemiol. Community Health 2009, 63:593-598.
14. Greenland S., Lash T.L. Bias analysis. Ch. 19. Modern Epidemiology 2008, 345-380. Lippincott-Wolters-Kluwer, Philadelphia. 3rd ed. K.J. Rothman, S. Greenland, T.L. Lash (Eds.).
15. Greenland S., Poole C. Problems in common interpretations of statistics in scientific articles, expert reports, and testimony. Jurimetrics 2011, 51:113-129.
16. Greenland S., Rothman K.J. Introduction to categorical statistics. Ch. 14. Modern Epidemiology 2008, 239-257. Lippincott-Wolters-Kluwer, Philadelphia. 3rd ed. K.J. Rothman, S. Greenland, T.L. Lash (Eds.).
17. Greenland S., Gago-Dominguez M., Castellao J.E. The value of risk-factor ("black-box") epidemiology (with discussion). Epidemiology 2004, 15:519-535.
18. Haack S. Putting Philosophy to Work 2008, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY.
19. Hill A.B. The environment and disease: association or causation?. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 1965, 58:295-300.
20. Hoenig J.M., Heisey D.M. The abuse of power: the pervasive fallacy of power calculations for data analysis. Am. Statist. 2001, 55:19-24.
21. Ioannidis J.P.A. Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med. 2005, 2:e124. (accessed 3 May 2011).
22. Jewell N.P. Statistics for Epidemiology 2004, CRC/Chapman and Hall, New York.
23. Koepsell T.D., Weiss N.S. Epidemiologic Methods: Studying the Occurrence of Illness 2003, 179-195. Oxford University Press, NewYork.
24. Lash T.L., Fox M.P., Fink A.K. Applying Quantitative Bias Analysis to Epidemiologic Data 2009, Springer, Boston.
25. Leamer E.E. Specification Searches: Ad Hoc Inference with Nonexperimental Data 1978, Wiley, New York.
26. Lehmann E.J. Neyman's statistical philosophy. Prob. Math. Stat. 1995, 15:29-36.
27. Matthews R.A.J. Methods for assessing the credibility of clinical trial outcomes. Drug Inf. J. 2001, 35:1469-1478.
28. Mayo D. Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge 1996, U Chicago Press.
29. Meier P. Damned liars and expert witnesses. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 1986, 81:269-276.
30. Mitchell T.J., Beauchamp J.J. Bayesian variable selection in linear regression. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 1988, 83:1023-1036.
31. Neyman J. Inductive behavior as a basic concept of philosophy of science. Rev. Inst. Int. Stat. 1957, 25:7-22.
32. Neyman J. Frequentist probability and frequentist statistics. Synthese 1977, 36:97-131.
33. Poole C., Greenland S. How a court accepted a possible explanation: a comment on Gastwirth, Krieger, and Rosenbaum. Am. Stat. 1997, 51:112-114.
34. Rothman K.J., Greenland S., Lash T.L. Precision and statistics in epidemiologic studies. Ch. 10. Modern Epidemiology 2008, 148-167. Lippincott-Wolters-Kluwer, Philadelphia. 3rd ed. K.J. Rothman, S. Greenland, T.L. Lash (Eds.).
35. Sellke T., Bayarri M.J., Berger J.O. Calibration of p values for testing precise null hypotheses. Amer. Stat. 2001, 55:62-71.
36. Senn S. Power is indeed irrelevant in interpreting completed studies. BMJ 2002, 325:1304.
37. Smith A.H., Bates M. Confidence limit analyses should replace power calculations in the interpretation of epidemiologic studies. Epidemiology 1992, 3:449-452.
38. Susser M. Judgment and causal inference. Am. J. Epidemiol. 1977, 105:1-15.
39. Susser M. What is a cause and how do we know one? A grammar for pragmatic epidemiology. Am. J. Epidemiol. 1991, 133:635-648.
40. Thompson W.C., Schumann E.L. Interpretation of statistical evidence in criminal trials: the prosecutor's fallacy and the defense attorney's fallacy. Law Hum. Behav. 1987, 11:167-187.