Criteria for estimating relative risks
The associations provided in this report were based on a comprehensive review of the literature. This provided evidence for the direction and size of the relationship between BMI and the selected health outcomes. A number of meta-analyses and systematic reviews have been conducted and these are referred to in the data source pages and cited in more detail in the Appendix (Relative Risk assessments pdf 0.7MB click to dowload).
From these reviews and from large-scale individual studies a value was derived for use in the Dynamo-HIA study. The value chosen was a judgement based on a number of factors:
• The findings of relevant and large-scale studies, shown in the Appendix;
• The findings of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, shown in the Appendix;
• Higher priority to data which represented European populations;
• Higher priority to data derived from surveys which used measured, rather than self-reported, heights and weights to obtain BMI;
• Higher priority to reviews conducted in most recent decades, referring to more studies;
• Choosing a conservative approach (i.e. ‘the actual risk is likely to be greater than this’) rather than a ‘worst case’ approach (i.e. ‘the actual risk could be as great as this’).