Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada.
Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
Drug Alcohol Rev. 2021 Nov;40(7):1389-1391. doi: 10.1111/dar.13371. Epub 2021 Aug 4.
In a recent commentary, Allamani asked how one can establish causality in epidemiological research, and specifically about causality as it relates to alcohol control policy. Epidemiology customarily uses a sufficient-component cause model, where a sufficient cause for an outcome is determined by a set of minimal conditions and events that inevitably produce the stated outcome. While this model is theoretically clear, its operationalisation often involves probabilistic elements. Recent advances in agent-based modelling may improve operationalisation. The implications for alcohol control policy from this model are straightforward: the so-called alcohol-attributable fraction denotes the cases of morbidity or mortality which would not have happened in the absence of alcohol use.
在最近的一篇评论中，Allamani 提出了如何在流行病学研究中确定因果关系的问题，特别是与酒精控制政策相关的因果关系。流行病学通常使用充分组分因果模型，其中，一个结果的充分原因由一组必然产生所述结果的最小条件和事件来确定。虽然该模型在理论上是明确的，但它的实施通常涉及概率元素。基于主体的建模的最新进展可能会改进实施。从该模型得出的酒精控制政策的含义是直接的：所谓的酒精归因分数表示如果没有饮酒，就不会发生的发病率或死亡率病例。
