Adjusting for multiple testing when reporting research results: The Bonferroni vs Holm methods

Abstract

Public health researchers are sometimes required to make adjustments for multiple testing in reporting their results, which reduces the apparent significance of effects and thus reduces statistical power. The Bonferroni procedure is the most widely recommended way of doing this, but another procedure, that of Holm, is uniformly better. Researchers may have neglected Holm's procedure because it has been framed in terms of hypothesis test rejection rather than in terms of P values. An adjustment to P values based on Holm's method is presented in order to promote the method's use in public health research.