What's the Relative Risk?

1998/11/18 by Jun Zhang, Kai Yu · 8 citations
Mathematics · Medicine · #Statistical Methods in Epidemiology #Odds ratio #Medicine #Logistic regression #Relative risk #Incidence (geometry) #Confidence interval #Odds #Population #Rate ratio #Cohort study #Statistics #Demography #Internal medicine #Mathematics #Environmental health

paper · doi:10.1001/jama.280.19.1690

openalex publication_date 1998/11/18 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Logistic regression is used frequently in cohort studies and clinical trials. When the incidence of an outcome of interest is common in the study population (>10%), the adjusted odds ratio derived from the logistic regression can no longer approximate the risk ratio. The more frequent the outcome, the more the odds ratio overestimates the risk ratio when it is more than 1 or underestimates it when it is less than 1. We propose a simple method to approximate a risk ratio from the adjusted odds ratio and derive an estimate of an association or treatment effect that better represents the true relative risk.

Cited by

• Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue 6 Years After Giardia Infection: A Controlled Prospective Cohort Study
• Sedentary Time and Its Association With Risk for Disease Incidence, Mortality, and Hospitalization in Adults
• What's the Relative Risk? A Method to Directly Estimate Risk Ratios in Cohort Studies of Common Outcomes
• Dietary fiber intake and reduced risk of ovarian cancer: a meta-analysis
• Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Miscarriage and Maternal Exposure to Tobacco Smoke During Pregnancy
• Developing Asthma in Childhood from Exposure to Secondhand Tobacco Smoke: Insights from a Meta-Regression
• Passive Smoking and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: A Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies
• Odds ratio [wikipedia]