Proposed by Sir Austin Bradford Hill in 1965, the considerations include strength of association, consistency across studies, specificity, temporality, biological gradient or dose-response, plausibility, coherence, experimental evidence, and analogy.
Only temporality is universally regarded as necessary; the others are considerations rather than requirements.
Alternative Names:
Hill Criteria, Bradford Hill Considerations
Why it Matters?
The criteria are the standard framework experts use to move from association to causation, which makes them the structure a Daubert challenge should track. The productive critique is not that the expert used Hill but that they applied it selectively, invoking supportive considerations while ignoring dose-response failures or inconsistent study results. Experts who recite the criteria without analyzing each are vulnerable on methodology.
Frequently Confused with
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
Must all nine criteria be satisfied?
How is a Hill analysis challenged?
