Abstract
In epidemiology, the concepts of “biologic” and “statistical” interactions have been the subject of extensive debate. We present a new approach to biologic interaction based on Rothman’s original (Am J Epidemiol, 104:587–592, 1976) discussion of sufficient causes. We do this in a probabilistic framework using competing risks and argue that sufficient cause interaction between two factors can be evaluated via the parameters in a particular statistical model, the additive hazard rate model. We present empirical conditions for presence of sufficient cause interaction and an example based on data from a liver cirrhosis trial illustrates the ideas.
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Andersen, P.K., Skrondal, A. A competing risks approach to “biologic” interaction. Lifetime Data Anal 21, 300–314 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10985-015-9318-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10985-015-9318-z