Abstract
The concept of covariate adjustment is well established in therapeutic and etiologic studies. However, it has received little attention in the growing area of medical research devoted to the development of markers for disease diagnosis, screening, or prognosis, where classification accuracy, rather than association, is of primary interest. In this paper, we demonstrate the need for covariate adjustment in studies of classification accuracy, discuss methods for adjusting for covariates, and distinguish covariate adjustment from several other related but fundamentally different uses for covariates. We draw analogies and contrasts throughout with studies of association.
Disciplines
Biostatistics | Clinical Epidemiology
Suggested Citation
Janes, Holly and Pepe, Margaret, "Adjusting for Covariates in Studies of Diagnostic, Screening, or Prognostic Markers: An Old Concept in a New Setting" (May 2007). UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series. Working Paper 310.
https://biostats.bepress.com/uwbiostat/paper310