Confronting the Confounders: The Meaning, Detection, and Treatment of Confounders in Research Journal Articles uri icon

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abstract

  • When one variable is studied to try to explain another, the relationship between them may be biased by a third variable. This bias, known as “confounding,” is common and must be minimized in research. This description is deceptively simple, though. Identifying confounding is complex but can be reduced to a stepped procedure. By way of examples, this article describes confounding and how to recognize it.

publication date

  • March 1999