Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel statistics

In statistics, the Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel test (CMH) is a test used in the analysis of stratified or matched categorical data. It allows an investigator to test the association between a binary predictor or treatment and a binary outcome such as case or control status while taking into account the stratification. Unlike the McNemar test which can only handle pairs, the CMH test handles arbitrary strata size. It is named after William G. Cochran, Nathan Mantel and William Haenszel. Extensions of this test to a categorical response and/or to several groups are commonly called Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel statistics. It is often used in observational studies where random assignment of subjects to different treatments cannot be controlled, but confounding covariates can be measured.

Definition

We consider a binary outcome variable such as case status (e.g. lung cancer) and a binary predictor such as treatment status (e.g. smoking). The observations are grouped in strata. The stratified data are summarized in a series of 2 × 2 contingency tables, one for each strata. The i-th such contingency table is:

	Treatment	No treatment	Row total
Case	Ai	Bi	N1i
Controls	Ci	Di	N2i
Column total	M1i	M2i	Ti

The common odds-ratio of the K contingency tables is defined as:

$R={{\sum _{i=1}^{K}{{A_{i}D_{i}} \over T_{i}}} \over {\sum _{i=1}^{K}{{B_{i}C_{i}} \over T_{i}}}},$

The null hypothesis is that there is no association between the treatment and the outcome. More precisely, the null hypothesis is $H_{0}:R=1$ and the alternative hypothesis is $H_{1}:R\neq 1$. The test statistic is:

$\xi _{CMH}={[{\sum _{i=1}^{K}(A_{i}-{N_{1i}M_{1i} \over T_{i}})]^{2}} \over {\sum _{i=1}^{K}{N_{1i}N_{2i}M_{1i}M_{2i} \over T_{i}^{2}(T_{i}-1)}}}.$

It follows a $\chi ^{2}$ distribution asymptotically under the null hypothesis.

Related tests

• The McNemar test can only handle pairs. The CMH test is a generalization of the McNemar test as their test statistics are identical when the strata are pairs.
• Conditional logistic regression is more general than the CMH test as it can handle continuous variable and perform multivariate analysis. When the CMH test can be applied, the CMH test statistic and the score test statistic of the conditional logistic regression are identical.
• Breslow-Day test for homogeneous association. The CMH test supposes that the effect of the treatment is homogeneous in all strata. The Breslow-Day test allows to test this assumption. It should be noted that this is not a concern if the strata are small e.g. pairs.