The accumulated number of previous successes may enter the conditional mean in a history-dependent logistic regression. Its coefficient exponentiates to the conditional success odds ratio per previous success. For a specified future path, update this cumulative predictor after each outcome before multiplying the conditional probabilities.
Effect size Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-18
An effect size measures the magnitude of an observed or modeled relationship. A standardized mean difference expresses a mean contrast in standard-deviation units; other effect sizes include a correlation coefficient or odds ratio. Magnitude is distinct from the evidence against a null hypothesis supplied by a p-value: a small effect size can have a small p-value in a sufficiently large sample.
Forest plot 2026-10-07
A forest plot shows each study's effect estimate and confidence interval, together with a pooled estimate when appropriate. A vertical null-effect line allows comparison on a common scale. For an odds ratio the null is one and a logarithmic axis treats reciprocal ratios symmetrically; marker areas commonly encode study weights.
Genotype relative risk Created 2026-10-13 Updated 2026-10-20
The genotype relative risk compares the penetrance for genotype with that of a chosen baseline . The common baseline factor cancels when computing conditional probabilities of transmitted genotypes given an affected offspring. It is a ratio of disease probabilities, unlike an odds ratio.
Haplotype-relative-risk 2026-10-13
The haplotype-relative-risk design compares transmitted alleles to the corresponding untransmitted parental copies, used as internal controls for an affected offspring. If allele-1/allele-2 transmitted counts are and untransmitted counts are , the allele-1 odds ratio estimate is . An unmatched Pearson chi-squared test of independence treats this as a two-by-two table. The transmission disequilibrium test instead keeps parent-specific pairing and uses only discordant transmissions. The sampling assumptions of the unmatched calculation and any missing-parent reconstruction must be justified separately.
For binary predictors , a logistic regression with linear predictor has conditional odds ratios at and at . Their ratio is . The same interaction can be computed from the four cell logit link values as . Independent positive event and nonevent counts in each cell give an estimated variance for this contrast equal to the sum of all eight reciprocal counts. An interaction on the odds ratio scale is not an interaction on the absolute-risk scale.
A subject has a random intercept , with responses conditionally independent given and their covariates. Integrating the product of Bernoulli likelihoods over defines the joint subject likelihood and induces within-subject dependence. Its coefficients describe conditional odds ratios for a fixed latent subject effect. Under missing at random with distinct parameters, the observed-response likelihood integrates over the same random effect and sums out unobserved responses. Dependence of dropout on is not generally ignorable merely because conditional independence holds given .
Log odds ratio Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
The log odds ratio is the natural logarithm of an odds ratio. For two independent binomial groups with positive event and non-event counts and , its estimate is , with first-order variance by the delta method. Zero cells need a method that handles boundary data; the displayed normal approximation is not valid there.
For two independent binomial distributions with event and nonevent counts and , the odds ratio is . The delta method applied to , whose derivative is , gives a group variance . Substitution of the fitted proportion gives in the first group and in the second. Their independence gives the displayed sum. A normal approximation then gives a confidence interval on the log odds ratio scale; exponentiation produces an odds-ratio interval. Zero cells require another approximation or model.
For independent two-by-two tables with counts and total , the Mantel–Haenszel pooled odds ratio is the displayed ratio of sums. When all , it is also the weighted arithmetic mean of study odds ratios with weights . These differ from inverse estimated variance weights for log odds ratios. Both constructions can represent a fixed-effect meta-analysis, but they should not be silently interchanged when interpreting a supplied plot.
A conditional odds ratio can differ from the marginal odds ratio after averaging over a predictor, even without confounding. If conditional risks are , averaging gives , and odds of are generally not averages of the conditional odds. Consequently a common conditional odds multiplier need not equal the marginal odds multiplier. However, if both groups use the same distribution and everywhere, then and the marginal odds ratio is still above one. Noncollapsibility alone cannot reverse a uniformly signed effect under an identical background distribution.
Odds 2026-10-14
For an event of probability , its odds in favor are . They compare the probability of the event with that of its complement. Conversely . For example, probability gives odds , or one to three in favor. The same transformation applies to a conditional probability; an odds ratio compares these transformed probabilities in two groups, while a risk ratio compares the probabilities themselves.
Outcome standardization Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-20
Outcome standardization averages fitted conditional outcome risks over a specified target population's pretreatment covariate distribution. The same target distribution is used for each treatment strategy. Under conditional exchangeability, the positivity assumption and consistency, this average identifies the target mean of the corresponding potential outcomes. For a target consisting of treated subjects, average over their covariate distribution. A conditional odds ratio cannot generally be applied directly to an aggregate mean risk: the nonlinear odds-to-probability conversion must be performed before averaging. Outcome standardization supplies that individual-risk calculation.
Use logistic regression when the response variable is binary, for example whether a lecturer missed a deadline. It relates the event's log odds to one or more predictors, producing fitted probabilities between zero and one. Exponentiating a coefficient gives an odds ratio for a specified predictor change, conditional on the other model terms. An odds ratio is not generally a ratio of probabilities; the corresponding probability change depends on the starting probability and other predictors.
Report the outcome coding, estimated associations with confidence intervals, and relevant model checks. Sparse events, complete separation and dependent observations can make ordinary estimates or inferential procedures unreliable; repeated observations may need a generalized linear mixed model. For prediction, evaluate calibration and discrimination on data not used to tune the model. An adjusted association in an observational study does not automatically identify a causal effect.
Psychology has developed interventions that reduce some criminal and violent behaviour in particular populations; the evidence supports conditional effectiveness rather than a single treatment for criminality. Criminal behaviour is a legal category covering different actions and contexts, not a diagnosis. An arrest, a conviction, an episode of aggression and removal from home are different outcomes. Their measurement and the comparison service matter to any effectiveness claim.
One approach is cognitive behavioral therapy directed at decisions in provocative situations. Its theoretical basis is that rapidly selected interpretations and practised responses can become inappropriate when circumstances change. Work on identifying automatic appraisals, considering alternatives, rehearsing a pause and practising nonviolent responses aims to improve action selection before escalation. Social learning supplies modelling and rehearsal; reinforcement helps establish an alternative response. The hypothesis concerns modifiable processes rather than an assumption that all offending reflects deficient intelligence or deliberate calculation.
The Becoming a Man programme evaluated by Sara B. Heller and colleagues provides unusually strong evidence because two school-based studies randomly allocated access. The authors reported programme-participation estimates of 28–35% fewer total arrests and 45–50% fewer violent-crime arrests during intervention periods, together with improved school engagement. Their mechanism evidence was suggestive of slowing down automatic interpretations, rather than establishing mediation by a measured trait. These participation estimates should not be confused with the raw effect of being offered a place. The randomised offer supplies the clean intention-to-treat contrast; estimating participation effects requires additional assumptions about uptake.[ref]
Such results support a specific intervention in disadvantaged male youth in Chicago. They do not show that the same programme treats all adults with convictions, nor that the benefit must persist after sessions end. School membership, facilitator skill and local exposure to violence can alter effectiveness. Administrative arrest records avoid some self-report biases but also depend on policing; reduced arrests are not a perfect measure of the total number or severity of offences. Where feasible, independent victimisation or self-report measures and school outcomes should complement those records.
A second approach, multisystemic therapy, treats the adolescent's behaviour within interacting family, peer, school and community settings. A functional analysis asks what precedes and maintains a specific behaviour. Treatment may strengthen consistent parental monitoring, reinforce prosocial activity, reduce access to reinforcing antisocial peer interactions and help families solve practical barriers to attendance. Social learning and operant conditioning explain these components; the wider systems perspective explains why changing an isolated individual may fail if the surrounding contingencies remain unchanged. Delivery in the family's environment is part of the intervention, not merely a change of consultation venue.
In Charles M. Borduin's randomised study of 176 serious juvenile offenders, multisystemic therapy outperformed individual therapy on family-related measures and on rearrest outcomes over four years. This is evidence beyond improvement on a therapist's symptom scale. Nevertheless, a small developer-associated efficacy study against one comparator does not establish the size of benefit under routine services in another country.[ref]
The larger English START trial led by Peter Fonagy makes this limitation concrete. It allocated 684 families to multisystemic therapy followed by management as usual or to management as usual alone. At 18 months, the primary outcome, out-of-home placement, occurred in 43/340 versus 36/335 participants with available outcome data: approximately 13% versus 11%, with a reported odds ratio of 1.25 and 95% confidence interval 0.77–2.05. This did not demonstrate superiority. Placement is not identical to reoffending, but this pragmatic result prevents presenting the programme as reliably better than established local provision.[ref]
Both approaches illustrate why theoretical plausibility and outcome evidence have separate roles. Skills rehearsal can be the stated mechanism while the actual benefit arises through a supportive adult, structured activity or changes in peer exposure. Testing mechanism requires measurement before outcome change and, ideally, experimental variation of the proposed component. A favourable post-treatment association between parenting and offending is insufficient by itself.
A defensible assessment would prespecify serious harm and recidivism outcomes, use random allocation with an adequate active comparator, document treatment fidelity and uptake, and track participants after services stop. It would assess costs, school and family functioning, unintended exclusion and whether effects differ by need. Coercive participation also makes meaningful consent and independent outcome measurement particularly important. There is evidence that structured cognitive and family-based interventions can reduce offending, but treatment choice must follow population-specific comparative trials rather than the programme label or its theoretical appeal alone.
For a group with sample size , let be its overweight count. The natural sampling model is a binomial distribution, , with observed proportion . A grouped-binomial logistic regression specifies
Fitting event/nonevent counts, or fitting the proportions with weights , gives the same binomial likelihood. The weights represent trial counts; unweighted regression of the proportions would give small and large groups the same influence. If printed percentages are rounded, exact original event counts are preferable to manufacturing fractional counts from .
Year should ordinarily be a factor with three levels unless a linear trend over time is specifically intended. Country, sex and age group are also possible factors. The actual subset, reference levels and formula are absent from this PDF. For a year-by-age interaction term, write
With treatment contrasts, is the baseline logit, and are effects at the reference level of the interacting factor, and is an additional difference of log-odds differences. Exponentiating a main-effect contrast gives an odds ratio; exponentiating an interaction contrast gives a ratio of odds ratios. It is incorrect to interpret a main effect as a constant effect across the other factor when the interaction term is present.
A coefficient table should be read as estimate, standard error, a Wald estimate/error ratio and its reference-distribution probability. A whole multi-level interaction term is better tested by a nested likelihood-ratio test, using the decrease in deviance and the number of added independent coefficients. Null and residual deviances, residual degrees of freedom, convergence and fitted probabilities should all be checked. Large residual dispersion suggests lack of fit or dependence within sampled schools; a quasibinomial regression or an appropriate clustered analysis may then be preferable. Residual deviance is not automatically a valid chi-squared goodness-of-fit statistic for sparse groups or after estimating a free dispersion.
An interaction plot should display the group means or fitted probabilities against year, with separate lines for the interacting factor, and should also inspect the link scale. Nonparallel probability curves alone do not establish a logit interaction: even an additive logit model transforms nonlinearly to probabilities. As an independent descriptive illustration, the original study's Table 2 reports English boys' age-specific percentages. The following original plot shows their widening age differences after 1984 on both scales. It uses published descriptive values, not a reconstruction of the absent examination fit. The data are from pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC26603/ .
Figure 1.
Published English boys' overweight prevalence by age and year, shown on probability and logit scales
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For example, on the probability scale the 1984–1994 increase for the oldest group exceeds that for the youngest by percentage points using the rounded table values. On the logit scale the corresponding difference of differences is
This describes the interaction pattern, but its sampling uncertainty requires the group counts. The absent output prevents identifying the exam fit's coefficient estimates and significance tests.
There are two different uses of Poisson regression. A rare-event approximation models with
The fixed offset accounts for exposure, and exponentiated slopes are risk ratios, not odds ratios. The approximation is most appropriate when probabilities are small; it is not exact for appreciable prevalence because binomial variance is rather than .
An exact alternative stacks event and nonevent counts in each group and fits a log-linear model with a separate group intercept and event-by-predictor effects:
Conditioning on their total gives the binomial event probability , whose logit is exactly . Profiling the group intercepts enforces the observed totals and reproduces the grouped-binomial logistic regression. This Poisson surrogate for a conditional multinomial model is exact and should not be confused with the rare-event approximation.
The printed formula expands to the main effects of school type, acceptance and college, together with school-type-by-college and acceptance-by-college interactions. It contains neither a school-type-by-acceptance interaction nor the corresponding three-way interaction. Its Poisson regression model is therefore
For every college the mean table has odds ratio
Thus it tests conditional independence of school type and acceptance given college, while permitting both margins to vary freely across colleges. It does not merely assert a common, possibly nonzero association.
The maximum likelihood estimation score equations match every school-type-by-college and acceptance-by-college margin. Solving them gives the stratified two-by-two conditional independence model's fitted counts
Indeed these counts factor by row and column and have exactly the observed margins. For nondegenerate tables there are three free mean parameters per college: one total and two independent margin proportions. There are cells and parameters, hence 25 residual degrees of freedom. The residual deviance is
with zero-count contributions interpreted as zero. The Poisson linear terms cancel because the fitted totals equal the observed totals. Under the null and suitable large-count regularity, compare with . Sparse cells, structural zeros or degenerate margins require a different calibration, such as an appropriate conditional test or simulated reference distribution.
A large residual deviance is evidence of school-type/acceptance association in at least some colleges. A small one indicates compatibility with conditional independence, not proof of identical admission processes or absence of selection on qualifications. Residuals and individual college contrasts locate departures. Adding the school-type-by-acceptance term gives a common odds ratio, one extra parameter and 24 residual degrees of freedom. Adding the full three-way term permits each college's association and saturates the tables. The first comparison tests a common association; the second checks whether a common association is adequate. No frequencies are supplied here to evaluate these tests numerically.
The missing output is needed to identify the actual regression formula, response column, transformations and coefficient estimates. A useful possible analysis regresses the maintained-school percentage among acceptances on the corresponding percentage among applications, allowing for year; it must be described as a model of college-level composition, not a direct estimate of individual acceptance probabilities.
For instance, if and are these two percentages, a normal linear model might specify , with a slope-by-year interaction term if needed. The intercept is the expected response at zero predictor, often an extrapolation; the slope is a percentage-point change in acceptance composition per percentage-point change in application composition. A slope of one is not by itself evidence of equal acceptance chances: equal chances within every college would give the entire relation , including zero intercept and no year shift. A fit with positive slope mainly confirms that applicant composition helps predict acceptance composition.
Regression diagnostics should include residuals versus fitted values and predictors, a residual normal Q-Q plot, checks of heteroscedasticity, regression leverage, studentized residuals and Cook's distance. The aggregate mature-college category merits an influence check and a sensitivity analysis: combining several colleges can conceal different within-college patterns. Repeated observations from the same college across years may have correlated errors, so treating them as independent needs justification. Check nonlinearity, the year interaction and the effects of excluding no observation except with a substantive reason.
Percentages are bounded, and their precision depends on their denominators. A simple weighted least squares or binomial analysis requires the underlying numbers accepted, not merely percentages. For a proportion based on people, the working variance is under independent sampling, rather than constant across colleges. If the predictor percentage is itself estimated, an ordinary regression also ignores its uncertainty. The supplied summaries cannot recover all four cells of each college contingency table or the actual fitted numerical output.
The published Cambridge percentage table nevertheless allows a descriptive comparison of acceptance rates. Write for the maintained-school proportion among applicants and for its proportion among acceptances. The relative risk from group compositions gives
The overall acceptance probability cancels by Bayes' theorem. This risk ratio compares acceptance probabilities; it is not the acceptance odds ratio, which also needs the overall acceptance probability.
For Christ's, the two published application/acceptance pairs give risk ratios and . If the displayed percentages were rounded to the nearest whole percentage point, the relative risk bounds from rounded group compositions give ranges approximately and . Thus both comparisons remain below one under that rounding assumption. These are descriptive comparisons of observed groups, without adjustment for applicant qualifications or a causal effect interpretation. The published compositions determine approximate relative acceptance rates, but not their standard errors or the original regression results.
The family-history table contains men, of whom have the response present, giving an overall observed fraction . The unadjusted fractions are with a positive family history and without one. Their crude odds ratio is ; this is not the covariate-adjusted effect from the fitted logistic regression.
The full model has an intercept and nine slopes, hence residual degrees of freedom. The binomial distribution dispersion is fixed at one. Although the software labels coefficient-to-standard-error ratios as t values, here they are asymptotic normal Wald statistics, not statistics with an estimated Gaussian residual variance and an exact Student reference. The full conditional coefficients provide evidence for tobacco, cholesterol, family history, behaviour score and age: their absolute Wald ratios are approximately . The other four ratios are smaller in magnitude, especially alcohol at about . These are conditional associations; a weak adjusted coefficient does not by itself establish absence of an underlying association, and multicollinearity can affect the estimates.
The null deviance is on degrees of freedom and the full residual deviance is on . Their difference has a nominal nine-degree-of-freedom likelihood-ratio test reference for the nine slopes jointly. The absolute residual deviance should not automatically be compared with for the reasons in part (i).
The shown stepwise selection by the Akaike information criterion follows a backward path. For individual binary observations the saturated log-likelihood is zero, so
where includes the intercept. Removing a one-parameter term improves AIC exactly when the increased deviance is less than two. The successive deletions are alcohol, adiposity, blood pressure and obesity. The corresponding values are
At the final step, every remaining single-term deletion increases AIC. This is a local stopping condition of the search, not a proof that it found the best subset among all possible models. Obesity is retained for several steps because its successive deletion costs differ after the other terms are removed; the procedure does not simply sort the initial Wald ratios.
For the selected fit, write for positive family history and otherwise. The fitted linear predictor is
Holding the other predictors fixed, a unit increase multiplies the odds by . In the same variable order, the unit odds ratios are
A ten-year age difference multiplies the fitted odds by , and ten behaviour-score points by . Family history has adjusted odds ratio about , with ordinary fitted-model confidence interval . The intercept is the log odds at zero numerical covariates and absent family history; that extrapolated baseline is not a typical man's risk. Odds ratios are not risk ratios.
The selected model's residual degrees of freedom are , consistent with its six coefficients. All five retained slopes have nominal normal-Wald values below in that model, but these tests and confidence intervals do not incorporate the prior model selection. Its improvement over the intercept-only fit is on five nominal degrees of freedom; it loses only deviance units relative to the nine-slope fit while using four fewer parameters. Selection optimism remains relevant to predictive performance. Check possible nonlinear continuous-predictor effects, influential observations and clinically motivated interactions; assess out-of-sample discrimination and agreement of predicted probabilities with observed frequencies by cross-validation or external data. The printed output alone does not supply those diagnostics, and the selected high-risk male population limits extrapolation to other populations. Nothing here establishes causal effects of these observational predictors.
The prose names a second year that differs from the table label. The calculations use the four supplied counts, interpreting the first and second rows as the two displayed periods; no numerical conclusion depends on resolving that label discrepancy.
The first generalized linear model treats the four counts as independent Poisson random variables, with a log link and both row and column regression factors. The row-by-column interaction makes the log-linear model saturated. With , write
Its four maximum-likelihood fitted values equal the observed counts. Thus , , , and
The interaction is the log odds ratio measuring association of row and column. Under independent Poisson sampling, the delta-method variances are for the intercept, for the row contrast, for the column contrast, and for the interaction. Their square roots reproduce the printed standard errors. Although the software labels the standardized ratios as t values, these are asymptotic normal Wald statistics, with known Poisson dispersion one, not exact finite-df Student tests.
The statistical saturated model has zero residual deviance and zero residual degrees of freedom; this is a perfect interpolation, not evidence of predictive adequacy. The null deviance compares the four observed counts with an intercept-only model, whose four fitted means are . Fisher scoring is the numerical score/information iteration used to fit the model; the iteration count is a convergence report, not a test statistic.
Dropping the interaction gives the independence log-linear model for a two-way contingency table, . Its Poisson regression margin-matching score equations match the row and column totals, so
Here and denote the observed row and column totals. In particular the fitted row multiplier is , the column multiplier is , and the intercept is . These produce the second coefficient table. Their standard errors follow from the inverse Fisher information matrix; for the row and column contrasts their squared values are and , while the intercept variance is .
The Poisson deviance relative to the saturated fit is
The linear terms cancel because fitted and observed totals agree. The additive model has three coefficients, leaving one degree of freedom. Wilks theorem calibrates this likelihood-ratio test approximately by , giving . The interaction Wald test instead gives ; the two are only asymptotically equivalent.
Fisher's exact test conditions on both margins under independence. If is the upper-left count, then
Its usual two-sided p-value sums the probabilities of all tables no more probable than the observed . That sum is , reproducing the output without an asymptotic approximation. It tests the same absence of row-column association, but conditioning and discreteness explain the numerical difference from the likelihood-ratio test.
In ordinary language, the male proportion among the cases is in the first row and in the second. The estimated case-sex odds ratio is , but its approximate 95-percent confidence interval is wide, . These small samples do not give convincing evidence that the sex composition of cases changed between the two periods. Failure to reject is not evidence that the compositions are exactly equal. Nor do these counts establish a male-to-female disease-incidence ratio or an incidence trend: population denominators and comparable ascertainment would be needed for those interpretations.