The important use of famines as human laboratories to study long-term health effects has become widely recognised over the past decades. To date, over 300 epidemiological studies of the Chinese Famine of 1959–1961 have been published, and there is a fast-growing interest in examining its intergenerational impacts.1 However, many of them had major limitations in analytical methods. In light of the study by Hu and colleagues,2 we discussed some overlooked methodological issues and alternative strategies to conduct rigorous Chinese famine studies.

A frequently discussed limitation of Chinese famine studies is that many of …