Evidence synthesis through a degradation model applied to myocardial infarction.

We propose an evidence synthesis approach through a degradation model to estimate causal influences of physiological factors on myocardial infarction (MI) and coronary heart disease (CHD). For instance several studies give incidences of MI and CHD for different age strata, other studies give relative or absolute risks for strata of main risk factors of MI or CHD. Evidence synthesis of several studies allows incorporating these disparate pieces of information into a single model.