Abstract
When planning a research project an epidemiologist must consider how many subjects should be studied. While factors such as available budget certainly present constraints on the maximum-number of subjects that might actually be included in a study, statistical considerations are extremely important. To address the statistical questions about appropriate sample size, the researcher must first specify the study design, the nature of the outcome variable, the aims of the study, the planned analysis method, and the expected results of the study. Is the goal of the study to distinguish between hypotheses about the value of a parameter or function of parameters, or is the goal to provide a confidence interval estimate of a parameter such as the odds ratio or relative risk?
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Elashoff, J.D., Lemeshow, S. (2005). Sample Size Determination in Epidemiologic Studies. In: Ahrens, W., Pigeot, I. (eds) Handbook of Epidemiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-26577-1_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-26577-1_15
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