Testing an Assumption of Non-Differential Misclassification in Case-Control Studies
One of the issues regarding the misclassification in case-control studies is whether the misclassification error rates are the same for both cases and controls. Currently, a common practice is to assume that the rates are the same (“non-differential” assumption). However, it is suspicious that this...
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Format: | Others |
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Digital Archive @ GSU
2011
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Online Access: | http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/math_theses/103 http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1103&context=math_theses |
Summary: | One of the issues regarding the misclassification in case-control studies is whether the misclassification error rates are the same for both cases and controls. Currently, a common practice is to assume that the rates are the same (“non-differential” assumption). However, it is suspicious that this assumption is valid in many case-control studies. Unfortunately, no test is available so far to test the validity of the assumption of non-differential misclassification when the validation data are not available. We propose the first such method to test the validity of non-differential assumption in a case-control study with 2 × 2 contingency table. First, the Exposure Operating Characteristic curve is defined. Next, two non-parametric methods are applied to test the assumption of non-differential misclassification. Three examples from practical applications are used to illustrate the methods and a comparison is made. |
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