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American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access published online on April 8, 2009
American Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/aje/kwp066
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American Journal of Epidemiology © The Author 2009. Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Invited Commentary: Coming Out of the Box

Pam Factor-Litvak and Arnold Sher

Correspondence to Dr. Pam Factor-Litvak, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 722 West 168 Street, Room 1614, New York, NY 10032 (e-mail: prf1{at}columbia.edu).

Received for publication February 4, 2009. Accepted for publication February 10, 2009.

The authors apply the analogy of a "black box" from systems theory to epidemiologic problems. They highlight this process using the example of associations between sequential measures of body size and systolic blood pressure. Several other examples of the use of structural equation modeling or path analysis are described. Finally, the authors highlight several requirements for using these methods to "come out of the box."

birth weight; blood pressure; body mass index; child; epidemiologic methods; growth


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