Armstrong B
Am J Epidemiol. 1987 Aug;126(2):356-8. doi: 10.1093/aje/126.2.356.
In planning simple cohort mortality studies, researchers need to know what size of relative risk may be confidently detected with the projected size of the cohort and length of follow-up. Although methods for the calculation of such minimum detectable risks have been devised for case-control studies and for cohort studies where internal comparisons are the focus, this has not been explicitly done for cohort studies using external comparisons. This paper describes a simple procedure designed explicitly for investigating the adequacy of cohort size at the planning stage of a study. An example is presented of a retrospective cohort study of men in a Canadian factory. A method is shown for estimating the minimum detectable underlying relative risk for lung cancer in this cohort.
在规划简单队列死亡率研究时，研究人员需要知道，根据队列的预计规模和随访时长，能够可靠检测到多大程度的相对风险。虽然已经为病例对照研究以及以内部比较为重点的队列研究设计了计算此类最小可检测风险的方法，但对于使用外部比较的队列研究，尚未明确进行此项工作。本文描述了一种专门为在研究规划阶段调查队列规模是否足够而设计的简单程序。文中给出了一项针对加拿大一家工厂男性的回顾性队列研究的实例。展示了一种估算该队列中肺癌最小可检测潜在相对风险的方法。
