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American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access published online on September 19, 2007
American Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/aje/kwm257
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American Journal of Epidemiology © The Author 2007. Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION

Simple Formulas for Gauging the Potential Impacts of Population Stratification Bias

Wen-Chung Lee and Liang-Yi Wang

From the Research Center for Genes, Environment and Human Health and the Graduate Institute of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Correspondence to Dr. Wen-Chung Lee, Room 536, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, No. 17 Xuzhou Road, Taipei 100, Taiwan (e-mail: wenchung{at}ntu.edu.tw).

Received for publication May 8, 2007. Accepted for publication August 13, 2007.

The case-control study design is popular for genetic association studies of complex human diseases. However, case-control studies may suffer from bias due to population stratification. In this paper, the authors present simple formulas that can set a limit to the havoc population stratification bias can wreak (the lower and upper bounds of the confounding rate ratio and the upper bound of the type I error rate). The authors demonstrate applications of these formulas using two examples. The formulas can help researchers make more prudent interpretations of their (potentially biased) results.

bias (epidemiology); case-control studies; data interpretation, statistical; epidemiologic methods; genetics

Abbreviations: CRR, confounding rate ratio; ER-{alpha}, estrogen receptor alpha; IL, interleukin


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L.-Y. Wang and W.-C. Lee
Population Stratification Bias in the Case-Only Study for Gene-Environment Interactions
Am. J. Epidemiol., July 15, 2008; 168(2): 197 - 201.
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