Re: Bias in the proportionate mortality ratio analysis of small study populations: a case on analyses of radiation and mesothelioma

Details

• Personal Author:
  Hein, Misty J. ; Schubauer-Berigan, Mary K.
• Description:
  Studies of mortality in occupational groups frequently use proportionate mortality ratio (PMR) analyses (Steenland et al.1990). In the simplest case, the PMR is the ratio of the proportion of deaths due to a specific cause in the study population to the proportion of deaths due to the same cause in a referent population. Software packages such as the NIOSH Life-Table Analysis System (LTAS.NET) can estimate PMRs that are adjusted for gender, race, age, and calendar year (Schubauer-Berigan et al. 2011). Zhou (2014) recently claimed that the PMR reported in the NIOSH LTAS.NET program is biased under certain conditions - namely, when the number of deaths available for analysis is small relative to the number of cause-of-death categories, resulting in categories with zero observed deaths. To remove the bias, Zhou proposed an adjustment that involved excluding deaths from the referent population for categories with zero deaths in the sample when estimating the PMR. The objective of this letter is to point out faulty logic in Zhou's proposed adjustment and assure users of LTAS.NET that the PMR estimates produced by LTAS.NET are not biased. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Geology Mining Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Age-groups Humans Men Morbidity-rates Mortality-rates Racial-factors Sociological-factors Women
• ISSN:
  0955-3002
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  91
• Issue:
  11
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20047312
• Citation:
  Int J Radiat Biol 2015 Nov; 91(11):908-910
• Email:
  zcr9@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2016
• NORA Priority Area:
  Manufacturing
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  International Journal of Radiation Biology
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1fff253ef293e59b13b34fa1e2c8202608810b5e31a34cd18cc913344d9a5d9f0c632e999d8129ab8c37165a42f7ca1a8d0945841f18b09939654e546412b6de
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/202432/cdc_202432_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 475.58 KB ]