Hill's Criteria for Causation

Hill's Criteria for Causation are guidelines to help determine if a relationship between a factor (like a substance or behavior) and a health outcome is likely to be cause-and-effect. They include consistency (repeated observations), strength (stronger associations suggest causality), specificity (one cause leads to one effect), temporality (the cause happens before the effect), dose-response (more exposure increases risk), plausibility (biological sense), coherence (fits with existing knowledge), experiment (evidence from trials), and analogy (similar known causes). These criteria help scientists evaluate whether a factor truly influences an outcome, rather than just being related by coincidence.