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Essential qualities of epidemiologic measures and data sources and the concept of
external Validity
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Essential qualities of epidemiologic measures and data sources and the concept of
external Validity
Epidemiology utilizes an organized approach to problem-solving by
identifying the epidemic and its characterization, confirming the epidemic diagnosis,
establishing a case definition and collecting information about cases, describing data
temporally, and generating a hypothesis. The measures and the data sources used in
epidemiologic studies should reach a threshold level of specific quality parameters such as
Validity, reliability, representativeness, and the population level remaining informed about the
data recovered. External Validity, which is the capacity to transfer the processes observed in
one context to another, can be possible when the conclusions from a few people in a society
can be labeled valid to the whole society.
Epidemiology measures are employed to study characteristics of inputs for a
health system, i.e., incidence, prevalence, and mortality rates, how they are utilized, and the
impacts of morbidity or functional status of a population. Essential qualities to consider for
epidemiologic measures and data sources such as internal/external Validity, sampling,
random, representative, sample size, specificity of the target, goal, extent to which data and
measures are, in fact, reflecting what is intended, concerning disease rates, the connexion
between exposures and outcomes. Regarding reliability, the data collected should lead to the
same results each time they are used when solving a specific problem. Generalizability: A
researcher should refrain from using data from a source that would give systematically biased
results. Instead, a data source should be relevant to the population under study. Sample size:
There should have been enough sample size to obtain statistically sufficient results. The
failure to defy other sound effects and patterns in analysis resulted from working with small
samples with few observations. Specific aim: The guidelines on the means shall be described
in the manner outlined above. The definitions of the cases and measures used in developing
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the measures taken shall have been established in such a standard way that comparisons can
be made with other groups. To obtain and control the data for cost/efficiency, one has to
examine the depth and width of the data, which are within the quality and time-feasible
factors. As has been said before, the role of these factors depends on the analytic goals and
the questions posed for the research (Arendt et al., 2020).
In epidemiological measures, Validity is divided into external Validity and
internal Validity. External Validity is concerned with the extent to which the conclusions from
a study can be generalized to another population or location other than the study site. In
contrast, internal Validity is helpful when selecting a data source to get the data into because
the data source implies the sample's representativeness to the target population. Factors
related to external Validity include response representativeness, where, in the case of
databases, registers, or probability samples, it could be much easier to get a more generalized
response in the population than convenience samples. Overlapping of matters in which
generalizations should originate from information obtained from a similar context as the
context in which data will be applied. Temporal-Generalizability: The data used has to come
at the right time so that it is easy to generalize with the right time specification. Contextual
relevance: The collected data's collection time has to be appropriate for generalization at the
required period (Findley et al., 2021).
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References
Arendt, J. F. H., Hansen, A. T., Ladefoged, S. A., Sørensen, H. T., Pedersen, L., & Adelborg,
K. (2020). Existing Data Sources in Clinical Epidemiology: Laboratory Information
System Databases in Denmark. Clinical Epidemiology, 12, 469–475.
[Link]
Findley, M. G., Kikuta, K., & Denly, M. (2021). External Validity. Annual Review of
Political Science, 24(1), 365–393.