Effects of biomarker measurement error on epidemiological studies.

This chapter presents an overview of how measurement error in a biomarker affects epidemiological studies which use the biomarker. To estimate the effects of biomarker error, one must first measure the error using an appropriate validity or reliability study design and using appropriate parameters, i.e. parameters that are informative about the effects of measurement error on the 'parent' epidemiological study. These measures of the biomarker measurement error from the validity or reliability study can then be applied to what is known about the association under study in the parent study, in order to estimate the effects of the biomarker error on the results of the epidemiological study.