The Bradford Hill Criteria

The Bradford Hill Criteria are a set of nine guidelines used to help determine if a relationship between a cause and an effect is strong enough to suggest causation, rather than mere correlation. These criteria include factors like strength, consistency, specificity, temporality, biological gradient, plausibility, coherence, experiment, and analogy. By evaluating these aspects, researchers can better understand whether a certain factor, like smoking, truly causes a disease, rather than just being associated with it. Essentially, these criteria guide scientists in making stronger conclusions about what really causes what in health and medicine.