Describing the appropriate use and interpretation of odds and risk ratios

ABSTRACT

In sport medicine, epidemiology of sport-related injury provides the foundation for understanding what types of injuries and illnesses occur and who is at the highest risk. Thus, accurate and transparent reporting and interpretation of risk metrics is essential to sports epidemiology. Odds ratios (OR) and risk ratios (RR) are two statistics used to quantify the association between exposure and outcome and are frequently seen in sports medicine literature. While similarities exist, there are optimal ways to use and interpret OR and RR based on the study design and outcome incidence in the target population. In this short communication, we will present common study designs (e.g. prospective cohort, case-control, cross-sectional) along with recommendations for the use and interpretation of OR and RR. This will ultimately assist practitioners in choosing and interpreting these frequently confused measures of association and also help journal reviewers better understand the appropriate use of these measures when evaluating a manuscript.

KEYWORDS:

• Injury risk
• epidemiology
• research design
• relative risk

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.