Lecture 3 - Causation

Cause

What is the term for the event without which the disease wouldn’t have happened? It must precede the effect and can be either positive or negative, and can be one or multiple factors. Finding it will guide toward prevention and treatment.

Infection

What is the term for the ability of an agent to establish within a host?

Pathogenic

What is the term for the ability of an agent to cause disease?

Virulence

What is the term for the severity of damage caused by the agent?

Hill

What is the term for the 11 criteria used to help determine the causative agent of a disease?

Yes

Will a stronger association between the presumed causal factor and the disease make it more likely that a relationship exists between them?

Temporal precedence

What is the Hill criterion that says the evidence reflects that exposure to the proposed cause preceded the outcome/disease?

Yes

Will the presence of a dose-response relationship be further evidence of a certain cause producing the disease?

Biological plausibility

What is the Hill criterion which says that the cause-effect relationship is explained by bio-mechanisms?

Consistency

What is the Hill criterion which says that the cause-effect relationship has also been identified by other researchers?

Specificity

What is the Hill criterion which says that there should be one cause = one effect?

Coherence

What is the Hill criterion which says that new evidence should solidify what is known about the mechanism of the disease/cause?

Analogy

Which Hill criterion says that the causal relationship is already established for similar diseases?

RCT

What type of test (abbreviated) is the strongest one in terms of the Hill criterion (strength of study designs)?

Relative risk

What ratio is used in cohort studies?

Odds

What ratio is used in case-control studies?

Yes

Will a long interval between the cause and effect, multiple causes to one effect, and a cause requiring other factors to produce an effect all impair the use of the Hill criterion in discovering the cause of a disease?