EPID 301 Chapter Notes - Chapter 19: Recall Bias, Odds Ratio, Statistical Hypothesis Testing
11 Jul 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Researcher must be able to tell when a reported finding is completely wrong, when it needs further substantiation or when it can reasonably be accepted as a fact. Clinicians need to know when a new approach to treatment or a new method of assessment can be implemented or, perhaps even more importantly, when evidence in support of its implementation is lacking. Making the right decisions depends on being able to determine which assertions are supported by evidence and which are not. Critical appraisal is an important part of channeling the mathematical reality of the law of large numbers through observation and analysis, which delivers real scientific progress. By providing criticism of research methods, this type of internal peer review helps to identify and correct study-design defects (ex. Vulnerability to random error from inadequate sample size) When proposals are submitted to funding agencies, peer reviewers again critically appraise proposed research methods, seeking defects that could render the results vulnerable to error.
