In the field of epidemiology, the term 'dependent' often refers to the dependent variable in a study or model. This variable is what researchers aim to understand, explain, or predict. It is 'dependent' because its value is thought to depend on the influence of other variables, known as independent variables. For example, in a study examining the impact of smoking on lung cancer, the incidence of lung cancer would be the dependent variable, while smoking status would be an independent variable.
