Bradford Hill criteria

The Bradford Hill criteria, otherwise known as Hill's criteria for causation, are a group of guidelines that can be useful for providing evidence of a causal relationship between a putative cause and an effect, established by the English epidemiologist Sir Austin Bradford Hill (1897–1991) in 1965.

The list of the criteria is as follows:

Bradford Hill's criteria are still widely accepted in the modern era as useful guidelines for investigating causality in epidemiological studies. However, their method of application is debated. Some proposed options include:

Arguments against the use of Bradford Hill criteria as exclusive considerations in proving causality also exist. Some argue that the basic mechanism of proving causality is not in applying specific criteria—whether those of Bradford Hill or counterfactual argument—but in scientific common sense deduction. Others also argue that the specific study from which data has been produced is important, and while the Bradford-Hill criteria may be applied to test causality in these scenarios, the study type may rule out deducing or inducing causality, and the criteria are only of use in inferring the best explanation of this data.

Debate over the scope of application of the criteria includes whether they can be applied to social sciences. The argument proposed in this line of thought is that when considering the motives behind defining causality, the Bradford Hill criteria are important to apply to complex systems such as health sciences because they are useful in prediction models where a consequence is sought; explanation models as to why causation occurred are deduced less easily from Bradford Hill criteria as the instigation of causation, rather than the consequence, is needed for these models.

Researchers have applied Hill’s criteria for causality in examining the evidence in several areas of epidemiology, including connections between ultraviolet B radiation, vitamin D and cancer, vitamin D and pregnancy and neonatal outcomes, alcohol and cardiovascular disease outcomes, infections and risk of stroke, nutrition and biomarkers related to disease outcomes, and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and the prevalence of obesity and obesity-related diseases. Referenced papers can be read to see how Hill’s criteria have been applied.

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