Ergo, Florida is not causing Alzheimer's; aging is. Using the vernacular of epidemiology, aging in this example is known as a confounding variable. The apparent association between living in Florida ...

Matching: By matching pairs of subjects according to potential confounding variables, for example, sex and age, the impact of confounding is kept to a minimum (to be covered in more detail in ...

Nevertheless, it is of utmost importance to meticulously consider potential confounding variables that might exert influence on outcomes and potentially compromise the generalizability of findings.