Thinking outside the curve, part I modeling birthweight distribution 英文参考文献.docVIP

Charnigoetal.BMCPregnancyandChildbirth2010,10:37 /1471-2393/10/37 TECHNICAL ADVANCE OpenAccess Thinkingoutsidethecurve,partI: modelingbirthweightdistribution RichardCharnigo1*,LorieWChesnut2,TonyLoBianco3,RussellSKirby4 Abstract Background:Greaterepidemiologicunderstandingoftherelationshipsamongfetal-infantmortalityandits prognosticfactors,includingbirthweight,couldhavevastpublichealthimplications.Akeysteptowardthat understandingisarealisticandtractableframeworkforanalyzingbirthweightdistributionsandfetal-infant mortality.Thepresentpaperisthefirstofatwo-partseriesthatintroducessuchaframework. Methods:Weproposedescribingabirthweightdistributionviaanormalmixturemodelinwhichthenumberof componentsisdeterminedfromthedatausingamodelselectioncriterionratherthanfixedapriori. Results:Weaddressanumberofmethodologicalissues,includinghowthenumberofcomponentsselected dependsonthesamplesize,howthechoiceofmodelselectioncriterioninfluencestheresults,andhowestimates ofmixturemodelparametersbasedonmultiplesamplesfromthesamepopulationcanbecombinedtoproduce confidenceintervals.Asanillustration,wefindthata4-componentnormalmixturemodelreasonablydescribesthe birthweightdistributionforapopulationofwhitesingletoninfantsborntoheavilysmokingmothers.Wealso comparethis4-componentnormalmixturemodeltotwocompetitorsfromtheexistingliterature:acontaminated normalmodelanda2-componentnormalmixturemodel.Inasecondillustration,wediscoverthata6-component normalmixturemodelmaybemoreappropriatethana4-componentnormalmixturemodelforageneral populationofblacksingletons. Conclusions:Theframeworkdevelopedinthispaperavoidsassumingtheexistenceofanintervalofbirthweights overwhichtherearenocompromisedpregnanciesanddoesnotconstrainbirthweightswithincompromised pregnanciestobenormallydistributed.Thus,thepresentframeworkcanrevealheterogeneityinbirthweightthat isundetectableviaacontaminatednormalmodelora2-componentnormalmixturemodel. Background epidemiologicunderstandingoftherelationshipsamong The impact of birthweig