Statistical tests for comparing the associations of multiple exposures with a common outcome in Cox proportional hazard models

Abstract

With advancement of medicine, alternative exposures or interventions are emerging with respect to a common outcome, and there are needs to formally test the difference in the associations of multiple exposures. We propose a duplication method-based multivariate Wald test in the Cox proportional hazard regression analyses to test the difference in the associations of multiple exposures with a same outcome. The proposed method applies to linear or categorical exposures. To illustrate our method, we applied our method to compare the associations between alignment to two different dietary patterns, either as continuous or quartile exposures, and incident chronic diseases, defined as a composite of CVD, cancer, and diabetes, in the Health Professional Follow-up Study. Relevant sample codes in R that implement the proposed approach are provided. The proposed duplication-method-based approach offers a flexible, formal statistical test of multiple exposures for the common outcome with minimal assumptions.