Footnotes

• Contributors All authors were responsible for drafting and revising this reply.

• Competing interests Authors are supported by the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (JAS), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (JAS, DAR) and the Canada Research Chair in Medical Decision Science (DAR). Funding organisations were not involved in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis and interpretation of the data or preparation, review and approval of this manuscript.

• Patient consent for publication Not required.

• Ethics approval This study used publicly available statistical data with a waiver of approval from the University of British Columbia research ethics board.

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.