Commentary
Published in
Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 65 (4), 2011, pages 291-292.
Abstract
Alastair Leyland commented on a paper in the December 2010 issue2 about how individual mortality is influenced by the person's own education and the average education in the municipality of residence. The paper was based on a so-called ‘fixed-effects’ model, which is quite common in social science, but not in epidemiology. Leyland's intention was to explain the assumptions and limitations of the model to the readers, which is a highly laudable initiative. However, I am not sure the alternative model he suggests is very valuable.