Markov chain Monte Carlo: an introduction for epidemiologists

Details

• Personal Author:
  Hamra G ; MacLehose R ; Richardson D
• Description:
  Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are increasingly popular among epidemiologists. The reason for this may in part be that MCMC offers an appealing approach to handling some difficult types of analyses. Additionally, MCMC methods are those most commonly used for Bayesian analysis. However, epidemiologists are still largely unfamiliar with MCMC. They may lack familiarity either with the implementation of MCMC or with interpretation of the resultant output. As with tutorials outlining the calculus behind maximum likelihood in previous decades, a simple description of the machinery of MCMC is needed. We provide an introduction to conducting analyses with MCMC, and show that, given the same data and under certain model specifications, the results of an MCMC simulation match those of methods based on standard maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE). In addition, we highlight examples of instances in which MCMC approaches to data analysis provide a clear advantage over MLE. We hope that this brief tutorial will encourage epidemiologists to consider MCMC approaches as part of their analytic tool-kit. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Epidemiology Magnetic Fields Men Occupational Health Safety Women
• Keywords:
  Analytical-methods Diseases Exposure-levels Humans Magnetic-fields Mathematical-models Models Statistical-analysis
• ISSN:
  0300-5771
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Minnesota ; North Carolina ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  42
• Issue:
  2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20043532
• Citation:
  Int J Epidemiol 2013 Apr; 42(2):627-634
• Contact Point Address:
  Ghassan Hamra, International Agency for Research on Cancer, 150 Cours Albert Thomas, 69008 Lyon, France
• Email:
  hamrag@fellows.iarc.fr
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2013
• Performing Organization:
  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20100901
• Source Full Name:
  International Journal of Epidemiology
• End Date:
  20130831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:332cfdeeaf60ab7f52220b24b70307902a8e8695c880a3455cef9b1bdb8b02d1fe65b42011611e3edeb115a403016e48bb0535d50ab2c563ea8ac2057ff3207d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/195411/cdc_195411_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 370.62 KB ]