Attrition in longitudinal studies: advancing and evaluating statistical methods

纵向研究是监测澳大利亚人健康和福祉的重要工具。它们具有独特的地位，可以检查疾病随时间的变化，并前瞻性地收集有关暴露和疾病发病的数据。澳大利亚进行了许多成功的纵向研究，在循证卫生方面取得了重大突破（例如Nambour皮肤癌预防试验）。不幸的是，所有的纵向研究都有参与者流失的问题，这导致了对其有效性和普遍性的质疑。本项目将调查员工流失的原因，以及员工流失对纵向研究的影响，以改进他们的设计和分析。

Longitudinal studies are a vital tool for monitoring the health and well-being of Australians. They are uniquely placed to examine changes in diseases over time and prospectively collect data on exposure and disease onset. There have been many successful longitudinal studies in Australia that have lead to significant breakthroughs in evidence-based health (e.g. the Nambour Skin Cancer Prevention Trial). Unfortunately all longitudinal studies suffer from attrition, or loss of participants, which leads to questions concerning their validity and generalisability. This project will investigate the causes of attrition, and the effect attrition has on longitudinal studies, in order to improve their design and analysis.