The Ecological Fallacy can be a problem when interpreting population studies.
An ecological survey is a study of aggregate risk in a population, with people classified by a general level of exposure in their environment.
A fallacy occurs if a hypothesis generated by the population study of attributable risk leads to an incorrect inference about causation and/or individual characteristics.
Basis for the fallacy:
(1) The factor being studied may not apply equally to all members of the group. For example, some individuals in a group may not have had an exposure.
(2) There may be confounding factors with more than 1 factor involved.
Problems arise from an ecological fallacy if the analyst:
(1) Stops at the hypothesis generating stage, without doing further studies to see if the hypothesis is valid (i.e., the hypothesis becomes a conclusion).
(2) Tries to overinfer information about individuals based on aggregate statistics.
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