Gray Linsay
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow, G2 3QB, UK.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2016 Jan;51(1):155-7. doi: 10.1007/s00127-015-1153-8. Epub 2015 Nov 28.
Population-based health studies are critical resources for monitoring population health and related factors such as substance use, but reliable inference can be compromised in various ways. Non-response and attrition are major methodological problems which reduce power and can hamper the generalizability of findings if individuals who participate and who remain in a study differ systematically from those who do not. In this issue of SPPE, McCabe et al. studied participants of the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, comparing attrition in Wave 2 across participants with different patterns of substance use at Wave 1. The implications of differential follow-up and further possibilities for addressing selective participation are discussed.
基于人群的健康研究是监测人群健康及诸如药物使用等相关因素的重要资源，但可靠的推断可能会以各种方式受到影响。无应答和失访是主要的方法学问题，它们会降低研究效能，并且如果参与研究并留在研究中的个体与未参与者存在系统性差异，可能会妨碍研究结果的普遍性。在本期《药物与酒精滥用流行病学》中，麦凯布等人研究了2001 - 2002年全国酒精及相关疾病流行病学调查的参与者，比较了第2轮中不同第1轮药物使用模式参与者的失访情况。文中讨论了差异随访的影响以及解决选择性参与问题的进一步可能性。
