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Epidemiology Interpreting of Research Findings
Students may pick any epidemiological article to practice on the following questions
1. Potential concerns in interpreting the findings
a. How completely do the authors account for the disposition of all prospective members of the study population (e.g., persons sampled but not contacted, refusals, exclusions from analysis, etc.)
b. Does the study population seem to reflect the target population well? What sources of selection bias, if any, are likely to be a problem? Epidemiology Interpreting of Research Findings Help
c. What are the major possible sources of bias and other threats to validity that are important for interpreting the findings?
d. How well did the authors discuss these threats to validity? Did the authors present them objectively, evaluate their likely importance, and provide evidence in support of that evaluation? Did the authors conduct any specific analyses to evaluate reliability, validity, selection bias, social desirability, or information bias? What were the results of these analyses?
2. Conclusions, implications, and recommendations
ff. What are the primary conclusions? Are they stated clearly? Epidemiology Interpreting of Research Findings Help
a. How well are they supported by the findings and discussion?
b. How directly do the conclusions relate to the primary study objective and rationale?
c. How well did the authors address implications of their study and/or give insightful recommendations for next steps.
3. Overview of strengths and limitations
a. What were the key strengths of this study in regard to its objective and accomplishments?
b. Has the study taken advantage of new methodology? Epidemiology Interpreting of Research Findings Help
c. Do these strengths or new methodology advance the field? How?
d. What were the key limitations of this study in regard to its objective(s) and
accomplishments?
e. Are these limitations shared by other studies of this topic?
f. What would be needed to overcome these limitations?
4. Linkage with previous knowledge Epidemiology Interpreting of Research Findings Help
a. How well did the authors compare their results to the findings from other relevant studies?
How well did the authors discuss reasons for differences between previous findings and their own?
b. How well did the authors evaluate the evidence concerning the study objective or question in regard to possible biological or other mechanisms that could account for their findings and other criteria for causal inference (for this question, please ignore concerns about bias)?
c. How relevant and responsive to the study rationale was this discussion?
d. In what ways, if any, have the authors advanced previous knowledge?
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