Translations:Advanced Field Epi:Manual 1 - Disease Investigation/192/en

An estimate that is associated with a significant p-value (p<0.05) is considered potentially important but we need to consider both the p-value and the 95% confidence interval for the estimate. Statistical tests only tell us the probability that the observed result would have occurred due to chance alone - it tells us nothing about the biological importance of the risk factor. A risk factor may have a statistically significant effect in a particular study, but not be biologically important, and vice versa