Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 May 9:25:100415.
doi: 10.1016/j.lansea.2024.100415. eCollection 2024 Jun.

Observational studies: practical tips for avoiding common statistical pitfalls

Anna Freni Sterrantino  1
Affiliations
Review

Observational studies: practical tips for avoiding common statistical pitfalls

Anna Freni Sterrantino. Lancet Reg Health Southeast Asia. .

Abstract

This Personal View is intended for early-career researchers who are not yet experts in statistics. The Personal View focuses on common but usually avoidable flaws in the context of observational studies. I point out how study design, data collection, and statistical methods impact statistical results and research conclusions. With particular attention to study planning, sample selection, biases, lack of transparency and results misinterpretations.

Keywords: Bias; Good practices; Inference; Observational study design; Statistical checklist; Statistical methodology; Statistical pitfalls.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

This work was supported by the Ecosystem Leadership Award under the EPSRC Grant EP/X03870X/1 & The Alan Turing Institute, particularly the Turing Research Fellowship scheme under that grant. The author declares no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic representation of the processes of selection and measurement in cohort, case–control, and cross-sectional studies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kim K., Bretz F., Cheung Y.K.K., Hampson L.V. CRC Press; 2021. Handbook of statistical methods for randomized controlled trials. - DOI
    1. Hariton E., Locascio J.J. Randomised controlled trials—the gold standard for effectiveness research. BJOG An Int J Obstet Gynaecol. 2018;125(13):1716. doi: 10.1111/1471-0528.15199. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Matthews J.N. CRC Press; 2006. Introduction to randomized controlled clinical trials. - DOI
    1. Sydes M.R., Langley R.E. Potential pitfalls in the design and reporting of clinical trials. Lancet Oncol. 2010;11(7) doi: 10.1016/s1470-2045(10)70041-3. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rosenbaum P.R. Springer series in statistics. Springer International Publishing; 2021. Design of observational studies.https://books.google.pl/books?id=srp_zgEACAAJ Available from:

LinkOut - more resources