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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index H > Austin Bradford Hill Quotes

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Austin Bradford Hill
(8 Jul 1897 - 18 Apr 1991)

English medical statistician and epidemiologist who pioneered randomized clinical trials, and is known for creating Hill’s criteria for causation, used to substantiate a link between an observed effect and a suspected cause.


Science Quotes by Austin Bradford Hill (1 quote)

The statistical method is required in the interpretation of figures which are at the mercy of numerous influences, and its object is to determine whether individual influences can be isolated and their effects measured. The essence of the method lies in the determination that we are really comparing like with like, and that we have not overlooked a relevant factor which is present in Group A and absent from Group B. The variability of human beings in their illnesses and in their reactions to them is a fundamental reason for the planned clinical trial and not against it.
— Austin Bradford Hill
Principles of Medical Statistics (1971), 13.
Science quotes on:  |  Against (332)  |  Being (1276)  |  Clinical (18)  |  Clinical Trial (3)  |  Determination (80)  |  Determine (152)  |  Effect (414)  |  Essence (85)  |  Figure (162)  |  Fundamental (264)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Being (185)  |  Individual (420)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Lie (370)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Method (531)  |  Numerous (70)  |  Object (438)  |  Overlook (33)  |  Present (630)  |  Reaction (106)  |  Reason (766)  |  Required (108)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Trial (59)



Quotes by others about Austin Bradford Hill (1)

The risk of developing carcinoma of the lung increases steadily as the amount smoked increases. If the risk among non-smokers is taken as unity and the resulting ratios in the three age groups in which a large number of patients were interviewed (ages 45 to 74) are averaged, the relative risks become 6, 19, 26, 49, and 65 when the number of cigarettes smoked a day are 3, 10, 20, 35, and, say, 60—that is, the mid-points of each smoking group. In other words, on the admittedly speculative assumptions we have made, the risk seems to vary in approximately simple proportion with the amount smoked.
William Richard Shaboe Doll and Austin Bradford Hill (1897-1991 British medical statistician) 'Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung', British Medical Journal, 1950, ii, 746.
Science quotes on:  |  Age (509)  |  Amount (153)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Become (821)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Increase (225)  |  Large (398)  |  Lung (37)  |  Number (710)  |  Other (2233)  |  Patient (209)  |  Point (584)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Ratio (41)  |  Risk (68)  |  Say (989)  |  Simple (426)  |  Smoking (27)  |  Unity (81)  |  Word (650)


See also:
  • 8 Jul - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Hill's birth.

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