Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín 050034, Colombia.
Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3E 0J9, Canada.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Apr 6;20(7):5423. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20075423.
The level of clustering and the adjustment by cluster-robust standard errors have yet to be widely considered and reported in cross-sectional studies of tuberculosis (TB) in prisons. In two cross-sectional studies of people deprived of liberty (PDL) in Medellin, we evaluated the impact of adjustment versus failure to adjust by clustering on prevalence ratio (PR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). We used log-binomial regression, Poisson regression, generalized estimating equations (GEE), and mixed-effects regression models. We used cluster-robust standard errors and bias-corrected standard errors. The odds ratio (OR) was 20% higher than the PR when the TB prevalence was >10% in at least one of the exposure factors. When there are three levels of clusters (city, prison, and courtyard), the cluster that had the strongest effect was the courtyard, and the 95% CI estimated with GEE and mixed-effect models were narrower than those estimated with Poisson and binomial models. Exposure factors lost their significance when we used bias-corrected standard errors due to the smaller number of clusters. Tuberculosis transmission dynamics in prisons dictate a strong cluster effect that needs to be considered and adjusted for. The omission of cluster structure and bias-corrected by the small number of clusters can lead to wrong inferences.
在监狱中进行的结核病(TB)横断面研究中,聚类的程度和通过聚类稳健标准误进行的调整尚未得到广泛考虑和报告。在对麦德林被剥夺自由者(PDL)进行的两项横断面研究中,我们评估了通过聚类进行调整与未调整对患病率比(PR)和 95%置信区间(CI)的影响。我们使用了对数二项式回归、泊松回归、广义估计方程(GEE)和混合效应回归模型。我们使用了聚类稳健标准误和偏倚校正标准误。当至少一个暴露因素的 TB 患病率>10%时,比值比(OR)比 PR 高 20%。当存在三个层次的聚类(城市、监狱和庭院)时,具有最强影响的聚类是庭院,GEE 和混合效应模型估计的 95%CI 比泊松和二项式模型的更窄。由于聚类数量较少,使用偏倚校正标准误时,暴露因素失去了其意义。监狱中的结核病传播动态需要考虑和调整强烈的聚类效应。忽略聚类结构和由于聚类数量较少而进行的偏倚校正可能会导致错误的推断。