Assortative mixing as a source of bias in epidemiological studies of sexually transmitted infections: the case of smoking and human papillomavirus.

ABSTRACT: For studies examining risk factors of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), confounding can stem from characteristics of partners of study subjects, and persist after adjustment for the subjects' individual-level characteristics. Two conditions that can result in confounding by the subjects' partners are: (C1) partner choice is assortative by the risk factor examined and, (C2) sexual activity is associated with the risk factor. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the potential impact of the assortativity bias in studies examining STI risk factors, using smoking and human papillomavirus (HPV) as an example. We developed an HPV transmission-dynamic mathematical model in which we nested a cross-sectional study assessing the smoking-HPV association. In our base case, we assumed (1)

SUBMITTER: Lemieux-Mellouki P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9150526 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature