Epidemiology, public health, and false-positive results: the role of the clinicians and pathologists.

摘要

We congratulate Blair et al. (2009) and Boffetta et al. (2008) for drawing proper attention to the rhetoric of false-positive results concerning environmental determinants and human health outcomes.In particular, Boffetta et al. (2008) suggested that "users of epidemiological results outside the scientific community . . . should be aware of the fact that statistically significant or positive results are often false" and that "epidemiology is particularly prone to the generation of false-positive results."