Chunk #14 — METHODS — SELECTION OF DISEASE CONDITIONS CAUSALLY RELATED TO ALCOHOL (STEP 3) — 2. CHRONIC AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE CONDITIONS WHERE ALCOHOL IS A COMPONENT CAUSE (I.E., WITH AAFS LOWER THAN 100%)
In the present analyses, sufficient evidence of causality was defined as meeting all of the following criteria: (1) evidence of an association (positive or negative) between alcohol consumption and the disease or injury; (2) chance, confounding variables and other bias can be ruled out with “reasonable confidence” as factors in this association; and (3) evidence of a plausible mediating process [4]. Reasonable confidence in the present analyses was operationalised using two criteria: first, that the meta-analyses showed effects significantly different from no relations; second, that there was no empirical evidence of confounders or biases that eliminated the relationship. The latter was usually tied to study design and methodology. Usual criteria for establishing causality in epidemiology [6;15] were applied, with the most weight placed on the following four criteria (for example see [1]):
