Evaluate the collective function of references cited together in a given text segment.
Classify their combined role into one of the following categories: 'method', 'background', or 'result'.

Text:…carriage rate was 4.4%, which is in close agreement with that reported by Hisata et al. (2005), accounting for 2.3% more than the values mentioned in the study carried out by Torano et al. (2001) in La Habana, Cuba, 3.1% more than those of a study conducted in Brazil (Cardoso-Lamaro et al., 2009).
Category: