Epidemiology paper critique
Research Article Critique
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You are assigned to read and critique the article listed below. While you are not required to read other articles related to the paper, e.g., articles cited in the paper, reading additional articles may enhance your understanding of the subject matter and your ability to critique the current investigation.
1. “Interrelation of Energy Intake, Body Size, Physical Activity with Prostate Cancer in a Large Prospective Cohort Study.”
[CANCER RESEARCH 63, 8542–8548, December 1, 2003]
Interrelation of Energy Intake, Body Size, and Physical Activity with Prostate
Cancer in a Large Prospective Cohort Study
Elizabeth A. Platz,1 Michael F. Leitzmann,2 Dominique S. Michaud,2 Walter C. Willett,3 and Edward Giovannucci3
1Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heath, The Brady Urological Institute, and the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns
Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland; 2Nutritional Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Rockville,
Maryland; and 3Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health and Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s
Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
Format and stylistic expectations:
1. Your typed submission must be printed on 8 ½” x 11” white paper using one-inch margins. Times New Roman 12-point font must be used throughout the document. The document should be either double spaced or 1.5 lines spaced.
2. Your critique should be a maximum of 4 pages , not including references or any tables you might choose to include. Tables should be appended to the end of the text. Do not use footnotes. Refworks may be used to reference citations. Citations should be parenthetical or numerical. Citations must be used to attribute ideas that are not original to you, including direct quotations. Please follow one of the primary style guides for your use of citations.
3. Your document must be written in English and have appropriate grammar and punctuation. Use complete sentences.
The following must be addressed in your critique :
1. Purpose of study/research question/hypothesis to be tested. (1 point)
2. Main exposure (s) and main outcome (s) of interest. (1 point)
3. Brief description of the study population and why the population was chosen to address this research question. (6 points)
4. Brief description of the study design and its appropriateness. (2 points)
5. Brief description of the methods (i.e data collection and their tools) and their adequacy/appropriateness. (10 points)
6. Brief summary of the results and conclusions (Do not use the abstract). (10 points)
7. Study’s limitations and implications of these limitations. (20 points)
This section should discuss limitations/weaknesses of the article, including limitations that were already discussed by the authors and other limitations that were not pointed out by the authors. In particular, you should list and discuss specific types of bias (i.e., selection bias and information bias and confounding factors) that may be present but were not adequately discussed by the authors. These issues may be related to study design, sampling methods, sample size, statistical methods, data collection techniques, selection of reference population and any control populations, presentation and interpretation of results, and appropriateness of conclusions from data presented. Discuss how these biases could have affected the magnitude and direction of the results and findings (Use DAG’s- do not count in the 4 pages. Use an appendix).
8. Study’s strengths and their particular value to the current data. (5 points)
This section should encompass matters such as study design, sampling methods, statistical methods, data collection techniques, selection of reference population and any control populations, presentation and interpretation of results, and appropriateness of conclusions from data presented.
9. Summary of the relevance of the study to the community at large (i.e., what are the “public health implications” of the findings). (5 points)
10. Recommendations for improvement of the study or direction for future studies (i.e., what is the “next step” in the research progression). (15 points)
State your overall impression of this article and any potential for improvement of this study or future studies. Recommendations must be explicit but may be creative. Recommendations should be realistic and practical (i.e., with normal constraints of time and resources) and have a sound basis in epidemiologic methodology and in consideration for ethical concerns. Also think through and consider whether several major guidelines for causality can and should be applied to this exposure-disease relationship. You may refer and cite other studies to support your discussion/criticism, and list these references at the end, if any.
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Important Points to Consider:
The following should help you think through the above issues that you must address in your critique.
· Was the research objective or question/problem or hypothesis clearly described or defined?
· Did the introduction provide logical and clear links with the methods and analyses that followed?
· Was the study population well defined? How were the study subjects selected? Were exclusion/inclusion criteria clearly defined? Was the study population representative, unbiased, and of reasonable size?
· Was study design adequate/appropriate, given the research questions, objectives and hypothesis? Was it easily understood from the authors’ presentation?
· Were the methods clearly described?
· Were the methods describing how the exposure, potential confounders, and outcome clearly defined?
· Were the data analysis methods clearly outlined?
· Were any potential confounding factors appropriately considered and adjusted for in the analysis?
· Were the results clearly presented?
· Were the results presented in the paper appropriate to the statement of the research problem/hypothesis?
· Did authors’ make appropriate use of tables and figures? Were tables and figures easy to interpret?
· Was the discussion appropriate?
· Did authors summarize key findings and appropriately consider their work in the larger context of research in the area?
· Were the study strengths and limitations discussed?
· Were bias, confounding, and random error appropriately discussed?
· Were there any important strengths and weaknesses/limitations that were not addressed/discussed?
· Were conclusions logically made and supported by their methods and results?
· What was your overall impression? Would you accept the study findings or use in your day-to-day practice? Is there any potential for improvement that is helpful for further study?
One Final Note:
Some of these points will be explicitly stated in the article while others will be deduced by you from the information provided. If you believe the authors of your paper have completely omitted any of these topics, that is a point worth raising in your critique. The absence or cursory discussion of any of these topics is something you will want to discuss, including an indication of what was missing in the author’s write-up, a hypothetical explanation of why this information was absent, and how it impacts your understanding of the study.