Submited on: 12 Dec 2012 11:32:54 AM GMT
Published on: 12 Dec 2012 04:48:12 PM GMT
 
Joint Data Analyses of European Birth Cohorts
Posted by Dr. Thomas Herchline on 11 Jan 2013 04:07:52 PM GMT

  • What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?

    The paper compares two methods of joint data analyses of Europen Birth Cohorts. The comparison is based on published results of 3 studies; these are important contributions in the field. The main conclusions are that both the centralised and decentralised approach are recommendable for combined data analyses. Specific recommendations are given for using each approach.


  • Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.

    These conclusions are novel, but are fairly specific to the data sources discussed in the paper.


  • Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?

    Yes


  • Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?

    There is not a result section in this paper. The results from the data analysis have been previously published and is provided in the Background section of this paper. The "results" for this paper are not truly quantitative in nature but are discussed in the Discussion section. The results are somewhat subjective in nature; the paper would be strongly if clear objectives and/or study questions were identified and addressed.


  • If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?

    N/A


  • Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?

    See above


  • Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?

    N/A


  • Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?

    This work is somewhat unique and the authors do little to show how the findings could be applied to other types of data sets.


  • Other Comments:

    None

  • Competing interests:
    None
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    Medical Director, Public Health - Dayton & Montgomery County

  • How to cite:  Herchline T .Joint Data Analyses of European Birth Cohorts[Review of the article 'Joint Data Analyses of European Birth Cohorts: Two Different Approaches ' by Bonde J].WebmedCentral 2013;4(1):WMCRW002438
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  • What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?

    The paper compares advantages and disadvantages of two methods of joint data analyses of Europen Birth Cohorts. The topic is important and relevant as more and more pooling and meta-analyses of data are expected in times to come for realizing the full potential of  data retreival and sharing made possible by developements in information technology and statistical software. These will enable collaboration both at national and international levels as the  models presented in the paper can  function as a roadmap for national and international collaboration.

     

    Countries with better mutual research collaboration can go for centralized approach of data pooling which will allow more rigorous statistics and power particularly for detection of finer cause-effect associations.


  • Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.

    These claims are novel to a limited extent. The authors fail to mention how the centralized approach is radically different from large multicentric studies. In fact multi-centeric large studies can have an advantage over the centralized approach described by the authors, because these studies can be more harmonious since agreement on predictors and outcomes can be ensured from the outset during the planning stage of the study. As for the de-centralized approach one fails to understand how much different it is from a conventional meta-analysis. 


  • Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?

    It would have been desirable to compare the advantages of the two approaches, with conventional methods for instance to compare multicenteric studies vis-a-vis the centralized approach described by the authors and likewise compare the de-centralized approach with conventional meta-analyses.


  • Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?

    The results are not very specifically described. They state the obvious. Authors mention both approaches were successful and both laborious and time-consuming. This is to be expected in any study involvng a large number of teams. Most of the challenges mentioned are administrative and management issues. 


  • If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?

    NA


  • Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?

    Yes


  • Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?

    These approaches can be adopted by other workeres in future studies of birth cohorts, as well as in other situations where similars studies are planned at more than one center.

     

    However, authors can review some papers of systemic reviews of mult-centric studies or have pooled  studies and have done conventional meta-analyses, to see whether the approaches described by them have distinct advantages over this conventional methods. 

     

    This extra work can be done at not extra expense as all they have to do is review studies already carried out using the conventional methods of pooling studies to answer a research question.


  • Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?

    To some extent.


  • Other Comments:

    In the abstract of the paper, the "Discussion" part should come in the end under the different head of "Conclusion". The present "Conclusion" part would be more appropriate with the heading, "Results" and can come as the second last paragraph before "Conclusion."

  • Competing interests:
    No
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:

    No

  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    Have been involved in number of single center epidemiological studies. Undergone post-doctoral training in clinical epidemiology. Teaching epidemiology and bio-statistics at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

  • How to cite:  Banerjee A .Joint Data Analyses of European Birth Cohorts: Two Different Approaches[Review of the article 'Joint Data Analyses of European Birth Cohorts: Two Different Approaches ' by Bonde J].WebmedCentral 2013;3(12):WMCRW002397
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