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Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine pp 1–2Cite as

Ecological Fallacy

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Synonyms

Ecologic bias

Definition

Ecological fallacy is improperly inferring an association (or lack of association) at an individual-level based on a group-level relationship.

Ecologic studies use measures taken at the level of a group (such as a country, school, or hospital) rather than at the individual (such as patient) level. Ecologic studies are widespread in behavioral medicine literature due their low cost and convenience since ecologic data can often be obtained through census records or existing surveys and records. Two typical behavioral medicine ecologic examples are a study investigating the association between alcohol availability and violence (Gorman et al. 2005) in which data were collected at the census tract level and a study investigating the association between needle exchange programs and HIV seroprevalence among injecting drug users (Hurley et al. 1997) in which data were collected at the city level.

When risk factors and outcomes are measured at an aggregate...

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References and Further Reading

  • Durkheim, E. (1951). Suicide: A study in sociology (trans: Spaulding, S.). Glencoe: Free Press. (Original Work Published 1897).

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  • Gorman, D., Zhu, L., & Horel, S. (2005). Drug “hot-spots”, alcohol availability and violence. Drug and Alcohol Review, 24(6), 507–513.

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  • Hurley, S. F., Jolley, D. J., & Kaldor, J. M. (1997). Effectiveness of needle-exchange programmes for prevention of HIV infection. The Lancet, 349(9068), 1797–1800.

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  • Morgenstern, H. (1982). Uses of ecologic analysis in epidemiologic research. American Journal of Public Health, 72(12), 1336.

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  • Robinson, W. S. (2009). Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals. International Journal of Epidemiology, 38(2), 337.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biostatistics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Jane Monaco

Authors
  1. Jane Monaco
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jane Monaco .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA

    Marc Gellman

Section Editor information

  1. Clinical Communications, Quintiles, Durham, NC, USA

    J. Rick Turner

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Monaco, J. (2019). Ecological Fallacy. In: Gellman, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_1017-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_1017-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6439-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6439-6

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