Skip to main content

Biostatistics and methods

This section aims to publish studies looking at statistical models and methods and their application to problems of human health and disease.

Page 1 of 6

  1. Sampling a small number of participants from an entire country is not straightforward. In this case, researchers reluctantly sample from a single setting or few settings, which limits the generalizability of f...

    Authors: Mahboubeh Parsaeian, Mahdi Mahdavi, Mojdeh Saadati, Parinaz Mehdipour, Ali Sheidaei, Shahab Khatibzadeh, Farshad Farzadfar and Saeid Shahraz

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2021 21:1414

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  2. Although theory-driven evaluations should have empirical components, few evaluations of public health interventions quantitatively test the causal model made explicit in the theory of change (ToC). In the cont...

    Authors: Sarah Bick, Helen Buxton, Rachel P. Chase, Ian Ross, Zaida Adriano, Drew Capone, Jackie Knee, Joe Brown, Rassul Nalá, Oliver Cumming and Robert Dreibelbis

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2021 21:1411

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  3. The continuum of resistance model’s premise is that delayed respondents to a survey are more similar to non-respondents than early respondents are. For decades, survey researchers have applied this model in at...

    Authors: Benjamin Clarsen, Jens Christoffer Skogen, Thomas Sevenius Nilsen and Leif Edvard Aarø

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2021 21:730

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  4. Variable selection is an important issue in many fields such as public health and psychology. Researchers often gather data on many variables of interest and then are faced with two challenging goals: building...

    Authors: A. Bartonicek, S. R. Wickham, N. Pat and T. S. Conner

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2021 21:695

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  5. Routine influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) surveillance networks use frequentist methods to estimate VE. With data from more than a decade of VE surveillance from diverse global populations now available, us...

    Authors: Michael L. Jackson, Jill Ferdinands, Mary Patricia Nowalk, Richard K. Zimmerman, Burney Kieke, Manjusha Gaglani, Kempapura Murthy, Joshua G. Petrie, Emily T. Martin, Jessie R. Chung, Brendan Flannery and Lisa A. Jackson

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2021 21:516

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  7. The complexity of public health interventions create challenges in evaluating their effectiveness. There have been huge advancements in quantitative evidence synthesis methods development (including meta-analy...

    Authors: Ellesha A. Smith, Nicola J. Cooper, Alex J. Sutton, Keith R. Abrams and Stephanie J. Hubbard

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2021 21:278

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  8. Mortality rate under the age of five is the proportion of deaths of children below the age of 5 years out of 1000 live births. It is related with the living standard of a population, and it is taken as one of ...

    Authors: Hunachew Kibret Yohannis, Moges Zerihun Fetene and Habtamu Gebremariam Gebresilassie

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2021 21:228

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  9. Despite significant progress in the reduction of under-five child deaths over the last decades in Ethiopia, still diarrhea remains the second cause of morbidity and mortality among under five children next to ...

    Authors: Yilkal Negesse, Asefa Adimasu Taddese, Ayenew Negesse and Tadesse Awoke Ayele

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2021 21:193

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  10. Tonga is a South Pacific Island country with a population of 100,651 (2016 Census). This study examines Tongan infant mortality rates (IMR), under-five mortality rates (U5MR), adult mortality and life expectan...

    Authors: Carah Figueroa, Christine Linhart, Latu Fusimalohi, Sioape Kupu, Gloria Mathenge, Stephen Morrell and Richard Taylor

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2021 21:36

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  11. The Service Availability and Readiness Assessment surveys generate data on the readiness of health facility services. We constructed a readiness index related to malaria services and determined the association...

    Authors: Ourohiré Millogo, Jean E. O. Doamba, Ali Sié, Jürg Utzinger and Penelope Vounatsou

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2021 21:20

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  12. In any study with voluntary participation, self-selection risks leading to invalid conclusions. If the determinants of selection are observed, it is however possible to restore the parameters of interest by re...

    Authors: Anton Nilsson, Carl Bonander, Ulf Strömberg and Jonas Björk

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1918

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  13. Improved colorectal cancer (CRC) survival rates have been reported over the last years, with more than half of these patients surviving more than 5 years after the initial diagnosis. Better understanding these...

    Authors: Sonia Pértega-Díaz, Vanesa Balboa-Barreiro, Rocío Seijo-Bestilleiro, Cristina González-Martín, Remedios Pardeiro-Pértega, Loreto Yáñez-González-Dopeso, Teresa García-Rodríguez and Teresa Seoane-Pillado

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1738

    Content type: Study protocol

    Published on:

  14. Respiratory tract infections are one of the common infection associated with Hajj pilgrimage that is of great public health and global concern. This study is aimed at determining the factor structure of the kn...

    Authors: Mohammed Dauda Goni, Nyi Nyi Naing, Habsah Hasan, Nadiah Wan-Arfah, Zakuan Zainy Deris, Wan Nor Arifin, Aisha Abubakar Baaba and Stanley Njaka

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1684

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  15. Most studies among Hispanics have focused on individual risk factors of obesity, with less attention on interpersonal, community and environmental determinants. Conducting community based surveys to study thes...

    Authors: Carrie R. Howell, Wei Su, Ariann F. Nassel, April A. Agne and Andrea L. Cherrington

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1678

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  17. Stunting is determined by using the World Health Organization (WHO) child growth standard which was developed using precise measurements. However, it is unlikely that large scale surveys maintain the same leve...

    Authors: Santu Ghosh, Nirupama Shivakumar, Sulagna Bandyopadhyay, Harshpal S. Sachdev, Anura V. Kurpad and Tinku Thomas

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1634

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  18. Acute organophosphorus (OP) poisoning is one of the major causes of mortality among patients presenting to emergency departments in developing countries. Although various predictors of mortality among OP poiso...

    Authors: Waqas Ahmed Farooqui, Mudassir Uddin, Rashid Qadeer and Kashif Shafique

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1538

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  19. In Ethiopia, malaria is one of the public health problems, and it is still among the ten top leading causes of morbidity and mortality among under-five children.

    Authors: Setognal Birara Aychiluhm, Kassahun Alemu Gelaye, Dessie Abebaw Angaw, Getachew Asfaw Dagne, Abay Woday Tadesse, Adugna Abera and Dereje Dillu

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1468

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  21. Unsafe pregnancy termination is a major public health concern among reproductive-aged women in many developing countries. This study evaluated the socio-demographic characteristics, as well as residual spatial...

    Authors: Rifat Zahan and Cindy Xin Feng

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1348

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  22. Ad hoc assumptions about the unobserved infection event, which is known only to occur between the latest-negative and earliest-positive test dates, can lead to biased HIV incidence rate estimates. Using a G-im...

    Authors: Alain Vandormael, Diego Cuadros, Adrian Dobra, Till Bärnighausen and Frank Tanser

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1205

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  23. Tuberculosis (TB), a preventable and curable disease, is claimed as the second largest number of fatalities, and there are 9,025 cases reported in the United States in 2018. Many researchers have done a lot of...

    Authors: Yan Wu, Meng Huang, Ximei Wang, Yong Li, Lei Jiang and Yuan Yuan

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1173

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  24. Various methods exist for statistical inference about a prevalence that consider misclassifications due to an imperfect diagnostic test. However, traditional methods are known to suffer from truncation of the ...

    Authors: Matthias Flor, Michael Weiß, Thomas Selhorst, Christine Müller-Graf and Matthias Greiner

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1135

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  25. Relative survival is the most common method used for measuring survival from population-based registries. However, the relative survival concept of ‘survival as far as the cancer is concerned’ can be biased du...

    Authors: Cameron M. Wright, Anna K. Nowak, Georgia Halkett and Rachael E. Moorin

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:1002

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  26. Several studies have shown that maternal HIV infection is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes such as low birth weight and perinatal mortality. However, the association is conflicted with the effect of ...

    Authors: Halima S. Twabi, Samuel O. Manda and Dylan S. Small

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:974

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  28. Population segmentation is useful for understanding the health needs of populations. Expert-driven segmentation is a traditional approach which involves subjective decisions on how to segment data, with no agr...

    Authors: Kelechi Ebere Nnoaham and Kimberley Frances Cann

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:798

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  29. There is a paucity of information on the epidemiology of heart failure (HF) in Australia. The Study of Heart failure in the Australian Primary carE setting (SHAPE) study aims to estimate the prevalence and ann...

    Authors: Richard Whaddon Parsons, Danny Liew, A. Munro Neville, Ralph G. Audehm, Deepak Haikerwal, Peter Piazza, Kevin Lim and Andrew P. Sindone

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:648

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  32. Since the 2009 A/H1N1 pandemic, Public Health England have developed a suite of real-time statistical models utilising enhanced pandemic surveillance data to nowcast and forecast a future pandemic. Their abili...

    Authors: Paul J. Birrell, Xu-Sheng Zhang, Alice Corbella, Edwin van Leeuwen, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, Katja Hoschler, Alex J. Elliot, Maryia McGee, Simon de Lusignan, Anne M. Presanis, Marc Baguelin, Maria Zambon, André Charlett, Richard G. Pebody and Daniela De Angelis

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:486

    Content type: Research Article

    Published on:

  33. Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a common infectious disease whose mechanism of transmission continues to remain a puzzle for researchers. The measurement and prediction of the HFMD incidence can be comb...

    Authors: Bisong Hu, Wenqing Qiu, Chengdong Xu and Jinfeng Wang

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:479

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  35. Many studies on malaria knowledge, attitude and practice among pregnant women have been conducted in Hausa speaking communities in Nigeria. Despite this, no standard and uniform instrument for assessing this i...

    Authors: Ahmed Dahiru Balami, Salmiah Md. Said, Nor’afiah Mohd Zulkefli, Norsa’adah Bachok and Bala Muhammad Audu

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:384

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  36. National or regional population-based HIV prevalence surveys have small sample sizes at district or sub-district levels; this leads to wide confidence intervals when estimating HIV prevalence at district level...

    Authors: Joseph Ouma, Caroline Jeffery, Joseph J. Valadez, Rhoda K. Wanyenze, Jim Todd and Jonathan Levin

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:379

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  37. We compared the prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension in Iran based on two hypertension guidelines; the 2017 ACC/AHA –with an aggressive blood pressure target of 130/80 mmHg- and the co...

    Authors: Mahdi Mahdavi, Mahboubeh Parsaeian, Bahram Mohajer, Mitra Modirian, Naser Ahmadi, Moein Yoosefi, Parinaz Mehdipour, Shirin Djalalinia, Nazila Rezaei, Rosa Haghshenas, Forough Pazhuheian, Zahra Madadi, Mahdi Sabooni, Farideh Razi, Siamak Mirab Samiee and Farshad Farzadfar

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:347

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  38. Outbreaks of respiratory infectious diseases often occur in crowded places. To understand the pattern of spread of an outbreak of a respiratory infectious disease and provide a theoretical basis for targeted i...

    Authors: Zuiyuan Guo, Shuang Xu, Libo Tong, Botao Dai, Yuandong Liu and Dan Xiao

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:135

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  39. The causes of childhood anaemia are multifactorial, interrelated and complex. Such causes vary from country to country, and within a country. Thus, strategies for anaemia control should be tailored to local co...

    Authors: Danielle J. Roberts, Glenda Matthews, Robert W. Snow, Temesgen Zewotir and Benn Sartorius

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:126

    Content type: Research Article

    Published on:

  40. Burden of disease estimates are an important resource in public health. Currently, robust estimates are not available for the burn population. Our objectives are to adapt a refined methodology (INTEGRIS method...

    Authors: Inge Spronk, Dale W. Edgar, Margriet E. van Baar, Fiona M. Wood, Nancy E. E. Van Loey, Esther Middelkoop, Babette Renneberg, Caisa Öster, Lotti Orwelius, Asgjerd L. Moi, Marianne Nieuwenhuis, Cornelis H. van der Vlies, Suzanne Polinder and Juanita A. Haagsma

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2020 20:121

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  41. Data audits are often evaluated soon after completion, even though the identification of systematic issues may lead to additional data quality improvements in the future. In this study, we assess the impact of...

    Authors: Mark J. Giganti, Bryan E. Shepherd, Yanink Caro-Vega, Paula M. Luz, Peter F. Rebeiro, Marcelle Maia, Gaetane Julmiste, Claudia Cortes, Catherine C. McGowan and Stephany N. Duda

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2019 19:1748

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  43. In populations that lack vital registration systems, under-5 mortality (U5M) is commonly estimated using survey-based approaches, including indirect methods. One assumption of indirect methods is that a mother...

    Authors: John Quattrochi, Joshua A. Salomon, Kenneth Hill and Marcia C. Castro

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2019 19:1516

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  44. We have developed an approach for modelling the health impact of introducing new smoke-free tobacco products. We wished to compare its estimates with those of alternative approaches, when applied to snus, used...

    Authors: Smilja Djurdjevic, Laszlo Pecze, Rolf Weitkunat, Frank Luedicke, John Fry and Peter Lee

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2019 19:1411

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  45. Screen time among adults represents a continuing and growing problem in relation to health behaviors and health outcomes. However, no instrument currently exists in the literature that quantifies the use of mo...

    Authors: Maricarmen Vizcaino, Matthew Buman, C. Tyler DesRoches and Christopher Wharton

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2019 19:1386

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  46. School absenteeism data have been collected daily by the public health unit in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph, Ontario since 2008. To date, a threshold-based approach has been implemented to raise alerts for commu...

    Authors: Madeline A. Ward, Anu Stanley, Lorna E. Deeth, Rob Deardon, Zeny Feng and Lise A. Trotz-Williams

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2019 19:1232

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  47. The United States appears to be in the midst of an opioid epidemic. National data indicate a rise in emergency department visits for opioid-related causes over the past decade. This data, while important in he...

    Authors: John R. Litaker, Naomi Tamez, Wesley Durkalski and Richard Taylor

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2019 19:1091

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  48. Approximately 17% of children in the U.S. are obese. Children that are overweight or obese are also more likely to be obese as adults and suffer from various chronic diseases and premature death. Maternal obes...

    Authors: Michele J. Josey, Lauren E. McCullough, Cathrine Hoyo and ClarLynda Williams-DeVane

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2019 19:1062

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  49. The current demographic trends indicate that breast cancer will pose an even greater public health concern in future for Pakistan. Details on the incidence, disease severity and mortality in respect of breast ...

    Authors: Sidra Zaheer, Nadia Shah, Syed Amir Maqbool and Noor Muhammad Soomro

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2019 19:1001

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  50. Inverse probability weighting (IPW) methods can be used to estimate the total number of cases from the sample collected through sentinel surveillance. Central to these methods are the inverse weights which can...

    Authors: Toon Braeye, Sophie Quoilin and Niel Hens

    Citation: BMC Public Health 2019 19:982

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

Submit manuscript

Follow

Annual Journal Metrics

BMC Public Health

ISSN: 1471-2458

Contact us