Am J Epidemiol 2004; 159:922-924.
Copyright © 2004 by the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
PRACTICE OF EPIDEMIOLOGY |
Invited Commentary: Birth Certificates—A Best Control Scenario?
1 Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research, Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
2 University of Minnesota Cancer Center, Minneapolis, MN.
3 Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC.
4 Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA.
Received for publication January 16, 2004; accepted for publication February 12, 2004.
Abbreviations: Abbreviation: RDD, random digit dialing.
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
 |
INTRODUCTION |
|---|
The majority of conditions that affect children under the age of 15 years (e.g., birth defects, diabetes, cancer) are sufficiently rare to warrant the case-control study approach. Furthermore, most pediatric studies require enrollment from multiple centers, registries, or hospitals to gain a sufficient sample size and thus can span large geographic areas. While selection of cases is usually straightforward, special care must be given to selection of controls to ensure that they represent the underlying population from which the cases arose. As Wacholder et al. (1–3) nicely described in a 1992 series of articles addressing control selection issues, an underlying cohort or study base can be primary or secondary. The primary base is the hallmark of a population-based case-control study in which all cases in a defined population are ascertained both geographically and temporally.
|
RANDOM DIGIT DIALING |
|---|
|
ALTERNATIVE CONTROL GROUPS |
|---|
Representativeness
Feasibility in tracing
Potential for expansion nationwide
|
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
|---|
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
Related articles in Am. J. Epidemiol.:
- Control Selection Strategies in Case-Control Studies of Childhood Diseases
- Xiaomei Ma, Patricia A. Buffler, Michael Layefsky, Monique B. Does, and Peggy Reynolds
Am. J. Epidemiol. 2004 159: 915-921.[Abstract] [FREE Full Text] - Ma et al. Respond to "Birth Certificates—A Best Control Scenario?"
- Xiaomei Ma, Patricia A. Buffler, Michael Layefsky, Monique B. Does, and Peggy Reynolds
Am. J. Epidemiol. 2004 159: 925.[Extract] [FREE Full Text]
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  J. V. Behren, P. Reynolds, R. B. Gunier, R. P. Rull, A. Hertz, K. Y. Urayama, D. Kronish, and P. A. Buffler Residential Traffic Density and Childhood Leukemia Risk Cancer Epidemiol. Biomarkers Prev., September 1, 2008; 17(9): 2298 - 2301. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 G. R. Bunin, L. G. Spector, A. F. Olshan, L. L. Robison, M. Roesler, S. Grufferman, X.-o. Shu, and J. A. Ross Secular Trends in Response Rates for Controls Selected by Random Digit Dialing in Childhood Cancer Studies: A Report from the Children's Oncology Group Am. J. Epidemiol., July 1, 2007; 166(1): 109 - 116. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 G. Mezei and L. Kheifets Selection bias and its implications for case-control studies: a case study of magnetic field exposure and childhood leukaemia Int. J. Epidemiol., April 1, 2006; 35(2): 397 - 406. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. A. Ross and A. F. Olshan Pediatric Cancer in the United States: The Children's Oncology Group Epidemiology Research Program Cancer Epidemiol. Biomarkers Prev., October 1, 2004; 13(10): 1552 - 1554. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
X. Ma, P. A. Buffler, M. Layefsky, M. B. Does, and P. Reynolds Ma et al. Respond to "Birth Certificates--A Best Control Scenario?" Am. J. Epidemiol., May 15, 2004; 159(10): 925 - 925. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|