ABSTRACT
A standard epidemiologic technique is the adjustment of data. This is done so that a fair comparison can be made between the mortality of one state versus that of another state when the age distribution of the two states is quite different. That is to say, the mortality of the states are adjusted for age, by assuming both states have the same age distribution. Under this assumption, the mortality of the two states can be computed and then compared with statistical techniques. Of course, in addition to mortality, one can adjust other variables, such as incidence rates of disease and prevalence rates of risk factors. There are many ways to adjust data, including the direct method, the indirect method, and regression techniques. Regression methods of adjustment are the subject of Chapter 4.
