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The problem
Intervention: Early-life infection exposure (measured by repeated infection-related hospitalizations and cumulative anti-infective medication exposure)
Who it was tested with: South Korean children born 2007-2014 with repeated infection-related hospitalizations (≥5 admissions) in early childhood.
Children or communities are compared with a group that did not receive the intervention, or followed over years. This is the design that best separates what the intervention did from everything else that changed.
"Propensity score matching (1:1) was performed based on sex, age, and early-life comorbidities" with a matched cohort of 53,464 children comparing those with repeated infection-related hospitalizations to hernia surgery controls. This quasi-experimental design with matched comparison groups provides stronger evidence than observational studies alone, though residual confounding remains a concern.
Population-based claims data cannot establish causation; potential unmeasured confounding; possible differences in healthcare utilization patterns between groups; cannot account for all clinical factors affecting neurodevelopmental outcomes
Across countries and designs
1 study · 1 country
