Key result
A methodological review of MRFIT screenees publications found incomplete databases and uneven quality control, undermining claims that it is the most exact database for risk factors and mortality.
Systematic Review
This methodological review challenges the widely held belief that the MRFIT screenees constitute a highly exact and reliable database for assessing risk factors and mortality.
Undermines confidence in MRFIT screenees data for risk assessment; challenges its status as the most exact database.
PURPOSE: To review the methods used in the many publications on the MRFIT screenees. METHOD: Medline was searched for articles mentioning MRFIT screenees. The articles were collected, abstracted, and the method section and some of the result section were scrutinized in detail. The statements in different articles regarding methods used and the presentation of results were compared. RESULT: The analyses of the MRFIT screenees seem to be retrospective studies of mortality and risk factors, where the underlying data base has been far from complete. Similar data are presented in slightly different fashions in several papers published in different scientific journals at about the same time. The control of the quality of underlying data has been uneven and is not discussed at all in most of the papers published. CONCLUSION: The often-repeated statement that the MRFIT screenees constitute the largest and most exact data base regarding the relation of risk factors to mortality in the healthy male US population has no foundation.
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Lars Werkö (1995) conducted a systematic review in Healthy male US population. Publications on MRFIT screenees was evaluated on Methodological quality and presentation of results. A methodological review of MRFIT screenees publications found incomplete databases and uneven quality control, undermining claims that it is the most exact database for risk factors and mortality.
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