Mendelian Randomisation and Causal Inference in Observational Epidemiology 英文参考文献.docVIP

Research in Translation Mendelian Randomisation and Causal Inference in Observational Epidemiology Nuala A. Sheehan , Vanessa Didelez, Paul R. Burton, Martin D. Tobin * The Problem of Inferring Causality in Epidemiology Five Key Papers in the Field studies also have some advantages over RCTs; for example, the subjects in the latter are not always representative of the population for which an intervention is being considered [6]. “Mendelian randomisation” provides an alternative way of dealing with the problems of observational studies [6–9], especially for the case where confounding is believed to be present but cannot be controlled for because it is not fully understood. Chen et al., 2008 [9] A recent application of the method that combines information from several studies and uses a genetic variant as a proxy for an exposure that is difficult to measure. The notion of risk is central to epidemiological research, both in its original context of studying conditions thought to be caused by a particular factor and, more broadly, in predicting the probability of a condition for prognostic purposes. For prognostic research, all factors associated with the outcome are of interest, whether they are causal or not. In aetiological research, on the other hand, causality is meaningful. Here, the focus is often on assessing the effect of some modifiable exposure on a disease with a view to informing health interventions at the individual or population level, or health advice for particular risk groups. For such intervention or advice to be effective, it is important to verify that the observed association between the exposure and disease means that the exposure is in fact causal for the disease. For example, once the relationship between periconceptual maternal folate supplementation and risk of neural tube defects was established [1,2], the United States, Canada, and Chile implemented mandatory fortification of cereal flour and related foods with folic acid and reported red