CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 303Stress Responses and CortisolStatistical Methods and Bayesian InferenceMental Health Research Topics

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 84 of the 85 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Estimating between- and within-individual variation in cortisol levels using multilevel models

Hruschka, Daniel J., Kohrt, Brandon A., Worthman, Carol M.·2005·Psychoneuroendocrinology
DOI 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.03.002
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Cortisol measures often are used to examine variation in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) activity as well as broader patterns of differential health. However, substantial within-individual variation renders single cortisol measurements unreliable as estimates for probing differences between individuals and groups. A standard practice to clarify between-individual differences involves collecting multiple samples from each participant and then deriving person-specific averages. By ignoring information about variation at between- and within-individual levels, this technique impedes cross-study comparison of results, ignores data useful for future study design, and hinders the analysis of cross-level interactions. This report describes how multilevel approaches can simultaneously model between- and within-individual variation in diurnal cortisol levels without using crude averages. We apply these models to data from children in Nepal (n=29, 11-15 samples per child), Mongolia (n=47, 8-12 samples per child) and the US (n=1269, 1-6 samples per child). Using the Nepal data, we show how an analysis of crude time-adjusted aggregates does not detect an association between aggressive behavior and cortisol levels, while a multilevel analysis does. More importantly, we argue that the 'roadmap' to variation generated by these multilevel models provides meaningful information about the predictive accuracy--not just statistical significance--of relationships between cortisol levels and individual-level variables, such as psychopathology, age, and gender. The 'roadmap' also facilitates comparison between the results from different studies and estimation of the necessary number of cortisol measurements for future investigations.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.03.002

Cites

84 of 84 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 303

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Hruschka, D. J., Kohrt, B. A., & Worthman, C. M.
Affiliations
Emory University (US)
Corresponding author
Hruschka, Daniel J.
ORCID
Venue
Psychoneuroendocrinology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2005-08
Volume
30
Issue
7
Pages
698-714
ISSN
0306-4530 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.03.002
OpenAlex
W2131578123
Cited by
303
References
85
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 28 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 23 · 2012: 18
FWCI
4.73
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Locations
  • Psychoneuroendocrinology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (MH57761, P30MH057761)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
  • Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Statistical Methods and Bayesian Inference
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
Keywords
cortisol, within-person variability, between-person variation, multilevel models, diurnal cortisol rhythm, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, aggression, psychopathology, children, sample size determination, cross-study comparison
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Algorithms, Child, Child, Preschool, Circadian Rhythm, Data Interpretation, Statistical, Humans, Hydrocortisone, Male, Population, Research Design, Saliva, Reproducibility of Results, Models, Statistical, Cluster Analysis, Linear Models, White People, Asian People

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review