Practice of reporting social characteristics when describing representativeness of epidemiological cohort studies – A rationale for an intersectional perspective

SSM: Population Health

Julia Rehling¹  Alexander Rommel²  Emily Mena⁴  Gabriele Bolte⁴  Philipp Jaehn⁵  Sibille Merz⁵  Christine Holmberg⁵  Sarah Strasser⁵  Ronny Klawunn⁶  Kathleen Pöge⁷  Anke-Christine Saß⁷ 

[1] Corresponding author.;Faculty of Health Sciences, joint Faculty of the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus – Senftenberg, the Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane and the University of Potsdam, Germany;Hannover Medical School, Institute for Epidemiology, Social Medicine, and Health Systems Research, - OE 5410 -, Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1, 30625, Hannover, Germany;Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane, Institute of Social Medicine and Epidemiology, Hochstraße 15, 14770, Brandenburgan der Havel, Germany;Robert Koch Institute, Germany;Umweltbundesamt, Corrensplatz 1, 14195, Berlin, Germany;University of Bremen, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research, Department of Social Epidemiology, Germany;

关键词: Representativeness;    Study participation;    Cohort studies;    Social location;    Intersectionality;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Representativeness has been defined as the degree of similarity of a study population compared to an external population. To characterize a study population, both health-related and social or demographic features should be considered according to current guidelines. However, little guidance is given on how to describe social complexity of study populations when aiming to conclude on representativeness. We argue that sociological concepts should inform characterizations of study populations in order to increase credibility of conclusions on representativeness. The concept of intersectionality suggests to conceptualize social location as a combination of characteristics such as sex/gender and ethnicity instead of focusing on each feature independently. To contextualize advantages of integrating the concept of intersectionality when investigating representativeness, we reviewed publications that described the baseline population of selected epidemiological cohort studies. Information on the applied methods to characterize the study population was extracted, as well as reported social characteristics. Nearly all reviewed studies reported descriptive statistics of the baseline population and response proportions. In most publications, study populations were characterized according to place of residence, age and sex/gender while other social characteristics were reported irregularly. Differential patterns of representativeness were revealed in analyses that stratified social characteristics by sex/gender or age. Furthermore, the included studies did not explicitly state the theoretical approach that underlay their description of the study population. Intersectionality might be particularly fruitful when applied to descriptions of representativeness, because this concept provides an understanding of social location that has been developed based on situated experiences of people at the intersection of multiple axes of social power relations. An intersectional perspective, hence, contributes to approximate social complexity of study populations and might contribute to increase validity of conclusions on representativeness of population-based studies.

【 授权许可】

Unknown