Analytic approaches to longitudinal caries data in adults

作者：James D. Beck, Herenia Procopio Lawrence, Gary G. Koch · 发表于：Community Dentistry And Oral Epidemiology · 年份：1997 · DOI：10.1111/j.1600-0528.1997.tb00898.x · 被引用次数：50 · 研究领域：Dental Health and Care Utilization、Reliability and Agreement in Measurement、Dental Radiography and Imaging

The objective of this paper is to consider current methods for analyzing longitudinal caries data in adults. To illustrate these methods, we used data from the Piedmont dental study, a prospective investigation of the oral health of older adults. Longitudinal dental data sets comprise repeated observations of an outcome (often clustered within randomly selected primary sampling units), and a set of covariates for each of many subjects, in whom clustering can occur as a result of measuring teeth, or surfaces, within people. One objective of statistical analysis is to predict the outcome variable as a function of the covariates, while accounting for the correlation among the repeated observations for a given subject and the effect of clustering within subjects, as well as between subjects within primary sampling units, such as communities, schools, hospitals, or other such units. We considered two statistical approaches: generalized estimating equations and survey regression models. We also examined the impact of varying diagnostic criteria for caries estimation between epidemiologists and clinicians. One approach is to perform the usual time(x) exam score minus time0 score analysis for the baseline and final examinations, while an alternative is to analyze trends among interim examinations. Finally, because caries studies in which the onset of the disease is the endpoint face the problem of censoring due to subject attrition and/or tooth loss, we recommend the incidence densit...