Quality control efforts were made by following the STEPS methodology, training (for the principal investigators), use of common measuring instruments (digital BP machines, measuring tape, and weighing scale), and intensive monitoring and supervision of field activities.
There are compelling reasons to promote the use of standard (common) measures for genome-wide association studies and other large-scale genomic research efforts.
Furthermore, the use of common, agreed upon outcome measures including child, parent, family and interactions variables, would facilitate the comparison of studies.
To estimate the quality of recognition we use the common measure of specificity, that is the ability to discriminate between competing targets.
The full database is available in Additional file 3. Descriptive analysis was carried out using common measures of synthesis; values are expressed as mean ± standard deviation (SD).
It is shown that relative catalyst rankings using common measures of performance from the two independent systems are in good agreement, which validates the utility of the system as an accelerated screening tool.
These findings will need to be verified using common measures of social support (when three year follow up data are available for both the HCS and ARMHS cohorts), as well as replicated in other samples using common measures of social support both to confirm current findings and ensure generalizability to other areas of Australia.
While it would be desirable to use a common measure of treatment effect for all studies, it is well established that crossover from control to active treatment may attenuate observed treatment effects on OS relative to what would have been observed in the absence of such crossover (Finkelstein and Schoenfeld, 2011; Saad and Buyse, 2012).
Although each cohort was studied for distinct specific aims, pooling was performed through the use of common methods for recruiting subjects and measuring lead exposure, covariates, and anthropometry, which were deliberately standardized.
As part of the large European ESCAPE project, this study has some major strengths, including the large number of observations, a multi-city study design covering many types of exposure environments and climates, rigorous exposure assessment including extensive quality control measures, and the use of common study manuals for exposure assessment, data management, and data analyses.
