Is It Necessary to Correct for Measurement Error in Nutritional Epidemiology?

摘要

Relationships between diet and chronic disease have become the focus of many analytic studies in nutritional epidemiology over the past several decades. Given often relatively limited variation in dietary intake within study populations, the results of observational studies critically depend on accurate assessment of the dietary exposure and other adjustment covariates, especially in view of the moderate-sized relative risks seen in many nutrition studies. Error in measuring exposure leads to a biased and inefficient estimate of the relationship of the exposure to disease (1). In this issue, Beulens and colleagues (2) present a prospective analysis of the relationship between alcohol intake, which participants self-reported using a food-frequency questionnaire, and cardiovascular events among men with hypertension in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. The authors report the findings before and after correction for measurement error, which provides a welcome opportunity to comment on the importance of measurement error in nutritional epidemiology