Alternative liability shifts the burden to multiple negligent defendants to prove they did not cause the harm.

Animal study extrapolation applies findings from laboratory animals to predict human health effects.

Attributable risk is the portion of disease in an exposed population that can be attributed to the exposure.

Background risk is the rate at which a disease occurs in the general population without the exposure at issue.

Biological plausibility is whether a proposed causal relationship makes sense given current understanding of disease mechanism.

The Bradford Hill criteria are nine considerations used to evaluate whether an observed statistical association reflects a causal relationship.

But-for causation asks whether the harm would have occurred absent the defendant's conduct.

A case-control study compares exposure histories between people with a disease and matched people without it.

Cause in fact is the factual link between conduct and harm, distinct from the legal limitation of proximate cause.

A cohort study follows exposed and unexposed groups forward to compare disease incidence between them.

Concurrent causation exists where two or more causes combine to produce harm, each contributing to the result.

A confidence interval expresses the range of values statistically consistent with a study's data, indicating estimate precision.

Differential diagnosis is the clinical method of identifying the most probable cause of a condition by systematically excluding alternatives.

A dose-response relationship exists where greater exposure produces greater incidence or severity of disease, a central indicator of causation.

Epidemiology is the study of disease patterns in populations, and it supplies the primary scientific evidence of general causation.

General causation is proof that a substance or product is capable of causing the disease alleged, independent of the individual plaintiff.

An idiopathic condition arises from unknown causes, providing an alternative explanation where exposure causation is alleged.

In vitro evidence comes from studies on cells or tissues outside a living organism, showing biological mechanism.

Increased risk of harm is a causation theory permitting recovery where negligence raised the probability of an adverse outcome.

A latency period is the interval between exposure and disease manifestation, used to assess causal plausibility.

The loss of chance doctrine permits recovery for a reduced probability of a better outcome, valued proportionally.

Market share liability apportions damages among manufacturers by market share where the specific product cannot be identified.

Medical causation is the link between the defendant's conduct or product and the claimed injury, established through expert medical testimony.

A meta-analysis statistically combines results from multiple studies to produce a pooled effect estimate.

Multifactorial causation describes disease arising from multiple interacting factors rather than a single cause.

An odds ratio compares the odds of exposure among diseased and non-diseased groups, used where incidence cannot be measured directly.

Proximate cause is the legal limitation on liability, confining responsibility to harms sufficiently connected to the defendant's conduct.

Relative risk is the ratio of disease incidence in an exposed population to incidence in an unexposed population.

Specific causation is proof that the substance actually caused this plaintiff's disease, established after general causation is shown.

Statistical significance indicates that an observed association is unlikely to have arisen from chance alone.

The substantial factor test asks whether conduct was a substantial factor in bringing about the harm, replacing but-for where it fails.

A systematic review comprehensively identifies and appraises all studies addressing a question using a predefined protocol.

Temporal relationship requires that exposure precede disease by an interval consistent with the known latency.

A threshold dose is the exposure level below which no adverse effect occurs, a contested concept for carcinogens.

Weight of the evidence methodology integrates epidemiological, animal, and mechanistic data to reach a causation conclusion.