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I have a regular case-control study where I can calculate the proportion of patients infected when exposed to say, UV vs regular light. For hypothesis testing, how do I decide which is a better measure - relative risk or absolute risk? I found this answer with comparison of the two approaches - How do you explain the difference between relative risk and absolute risk?

However, there were no guidelines on how to choose the right approach. Could you please help?

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Mr K
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    You cannot calculate either measure in a case-control study; you can only calculate an odds ratio. So please clarify. – Frank Harrell Nov 10 '16 at 20:54
  • What do you mean? I don't come from a stats background. And my problem is not in epidemiology. But for each group, I have exact information about the number of subjects infected, out of total number of subjects in the study. I want to compare the two groups. I can calculate the ratio and difference of the proportion of subjects infected. Maybe there is another name for this problem. Please guide. – Mr K Nov 10 '16 at 21:00
  • Study the different study designs. Case-control designs involve outcome-dependent sampling. With such retrospective designs you can't calculate certain quantities. – Frank Harrell Nov 10 '16 at 23:57
  • @FrankHarrell Thanks for the advice, Frank. However, I would be grateful for a little more details. Also, if you could recommend some reading - books or research papers, that will be helpful. – Mr K Nov 11 '16 at 00:00
  • See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odds_ratio – Frank Harrell Nov 11 '16 at 00:06

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