On Jan 14, 2008 4:01 AM, Maarten buis <[email protected]> wrote:
> But you only need to understand two simple things to understand the
> odds ratio: odds (number of successes for every failure) and ratios,
> both of which have a clear substantive interpretation. When dealing
> with categorical dependent variables, taking time to understand that is
> a relatively small investment but a big payoff.
My comment was indeed trivial for everyone with minimal exposure to
research methodology or epi; and off-target in that it side-tracked
the thread. I did not advocate the use of LPM in place of e.g.
logistic (except -as Maarten said- for very selected examples).
I just meant that for many purposes (explain connotations to policy
makers, decision or cost-effectiveness analysis, even for attributable
fractions on the population level) one would transform ORs to RRs
(assuming a control/population prevalence) or just use the OR as RR
(when the usual circumstances hold) to go on with calculations.
tom
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