AVERAGING ATTRIBUTABLE FRACTIONS IN THE MULTIFACTORIAL SITUATION - ASSUMPTIONS AND INTERPRETATION

In multifactorial situations, the concept of attributable fraction qua ntifying the population impact of exposure factors on the disease load needs special methodologic care to take the interrelationship between exposures into account. Recently, new epidemiologic parameters have b een introduced to address this issue. These approaches are reconsidere d here from a game-theoretical perspective. The derivation of game-the oretical properties of these parameters provides additional motivation for their use in epidemiologic practice and offers new insights into their interpretation in epidemiologic studies. The nontechnical descri ption of the results is illustrated by examples from the Hordaland stu dy on obstructive lung disease. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.