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      A statistical framework for public health analyses: compatibility and surprisal intervals to avoid common misconceptions

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            Abstract

            Misuses and misconceptions about statistical testing are widespread in the field of public health. Specifically, the dichotomous use of the P-value (e.g., deemed significant if P<.05 and non-significant if P>.05), coupled with i) nullism (an obsession with the null hypothesis over other hypotheses), ii) failure to validate the statistical model adopted, iii) failure to distinguish between significance and effect size, and iv) failure to distinguish between statistical and empirical levels, creates an extremely fertile ground for overestimating the level of evidence found and drawing scientifically unfounded or incorrect conclusions. For these reasons, widely acknowledged and discussed in statistical literature, this article proposes a framework that aims to both help the reader understand the epistemological boundaries of the statistical approach and provide a structured workflow for conducting a statistical analysis capable of appropriately informing public health decisions. In this regard, novel concepts of multiple compatibility intervals and multiple surprisal intervals are discussed in detail through straightforward examples.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            ScienceOpen Preprints
            ScienceOpen
            16 December 2023
            Affiliations
            [1 ] R&C Research, Bovezzo (BS), Italy;
            Author notes
            Author information
            https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4634-279X
            Article
            10.14293/PR2199.000555.v1
            fc3417b0-807b-47b5-9f6e-7010196068ae

            This work has been published open access under Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0 , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Conditions, terms of use and publishing policy can be found at www.scienceopen.com .

            History
            : 16 December 2023
            Categories

            Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
            Medicine,Methodology,Public health
            compatibility,significance,confidence interval,public health,epidemiology,statistical testing,surprisal,surprisal interval,nullism,p value

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