This week you were introduced to three complex theories that are used to advocate for a cause and effect relationship between exposures and diseases. These three models of cause and effect are:
- Hill’s Criteria for Causation
- Rothman’s Pie Model
- Web of Causation
Each of these models can be worked for a specific exposure and disease relationship to make an argument for a causal relationship. In this week’s discussion, you are going to select a specific cause and effect model and apply it to a disease of your choice. Please note that you will have to be specific. Remember, epidemiology is a quantitative discipline. If you are going to talk about strengths of association you are going to have to discuss the results sections of the articles that you are reading.
Hill’s Criteria Guidance
If you are going to select HIll’scritiera you will have to write a brief paragraph justifying a specific exposure and disease relationship. You will need to use journals, meta-analyses, and web sources to answer each criterion. If you have an issue understand the criteria or how to answer it precisely, please reach out to your instructor immediately. Hill’s criteria will work on any disease.
Rothman’s Pie Model Guidance
Instead of selecting a single cause and looking at the role it plays in disease causation, you will be looking at the interplay between many different cases and using the terminology gone over in lecture to apply it to the disease you selected. Also, think of the PAR statistic. How could that be used to explain the slice of the pie that any one given risk factor explains the largest proportion of the etiology of the disease. This model works best for chronic diseases either communicable or non-communicable.
Web of Causation Guidance
You will need to include a picture of the web for your specific disease, and then explain the web and how each of the factors interrelate. Also, think of the strings in the web. Some studies will show you the statistics of association of each string in the web. You will definitely want to work in statistics into this post, as with the other selections. You will need journals and websites to assist you here.
The initial post must be between 350 – 500 words and is due on Thursday of Week 3.
