Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health

The Korean Society for Preventive Medicine (대한예방의학회)
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Network Analysis in Systems Epidemiology

  • Park, JooYong (Department of Biomedical Sciences, Seoul National University Graduate School) ;
  • Choi, Jaesung (Institute of Health Policy and Management, Seoul National University Medical Research Center) ;
  • Choi, Ji-Yeob (Department of Biomedical Sciences, Seoul National University Graduate School)
  • Received : 2021.04.09
  • Accepted : 2021.06.21
  • Published : 2021.07.31
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Abstract

Traditional epidemiological studies have identified a number of risk factors for various diseases using regression-based methods that examine the association between an exposure and an outcome (i.e., one-to-one correspondences). One of the major limitations of this approach is the "black-box" aspect of the analysis, in the sense that this approach cannot fully explain complex relationships such as biological pathways. With high-throughput data in current epidemiology, comprehensive analyses are needed. The network approach can help to integrate multi-omics data, visualize their interactions or relationships, and make inferences in the context of biological mechanisms. This review aims to introduce network analysis for systems epidemiology, its procedures, and how to interpret its findings.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This study was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korean government (NRF-2018R1A2A3075397) and by a grant of the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (HI19C1178).

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