Epi Monday

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Epi News Briefs 5/28/01

Editor's Quote of the Week "Bad statistics are harder to kill than vampires" Joel Best, author of the new book "Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers From the Media, Politicians, and Activists" as quoted in the New York Times, 5/27/01

Record Number 1400+ Registrations For The Congress Of Epidemiology 2001

The Congress of Epidemiology 2001 is headed for a record number of attendees. The planning committee budgeted for 1000, hoped for 1200, and has already received 1400 registrations, according to Michael Bracken writing on behalf of the planning committee for an update to be published in the June issue of The Epi Monitor.

According to Bracken, this will make the Congress the largest ever meeting of epidemiologists. There is still time to register and be part of this historic event.

Congress 2001 Chairperson Looking For Your Questions On The Nitty Gritty Aspects Of Carrying Out Studies

Dale Sandler, Acting Chief of the Epidemiology Branch at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences , will be chairing a session at the Congress of Epidemiology 2001 on the nitty gritty of carrying out studies. Panels of experienced researchers will be talking about various topics such as how to make a budget, what kind of staff you need, quality control, how to collect biologic samples in the field, response rates, incentives, and other topics.

Panelists will answer questions from those in attendance, however, the chair would like to receive questions in advance of the meeting. After the meeting, a compilation of “tips” which arose at the meeting will be prepared. Dale promises to send the list of “tips” to all those who provide questions. Contact her at sandler@niehs.nih.gov

New Book About “Damned Lies and Statistics” Is Enticing

Joel Best, the author of the new book “Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers From The Media, Politicians, and Activists” was questioned by the New York Times about his new book. He had enough interesting things to say that you might want to go down to the bookstore for this one. Here’s a sample.

“We talk about facts as though they’re rocks you pick up and they have an independent existence, and they don’t. When you hear a statistic, someone has created that. You cannot take that number and assume that is a pure reflection of reality. You have to look at how the number was produced and how it’s being used.”

Another useful observation Best made when asked what is the biggest trap people fall into when hearing a number: “I think the biggest error is that we hear a number and we automatically assume we know what is being counted. When we hear an estimate for the number of missing children, we imagine that these are children abducted by strangers...what people don’t understand is how broadly these phenomena are being defined in order to generate these big numbers.”

More Lives Could Be Saved With Greater Seat Belt Use

This is a pop quiz. How many more lives could be saved each year by wearing seat belts? a) 1 per week b) one per day c) one per hour or d) one per minute.

According to the National Safety Council, 9500 people died in 1999 who would have lived if they had been wearing seat belts. That translates to more than one person per hour in the United States throughout the year. That’s not all, if the whole country used seats belts as frequently as in California, a model state, an estimated 5-7000 deaths would be prevented.

Sometimes the way Americans perceive and focus on risk is difficult to understand. According to the Safety Council, approximately 90,000 people died sitting on their seat belts during the ten year period when the US experienced 163 Ford Explorer rollover fatalities. The latter occasioned considerably greater attention and concern.

 

Principal Investigator Of The Nun Study Is Interviewed By The Epi Monitor

David Snowdon, described here last week as the most famous epidemiologist in the world because his study appeared on the cover of Time Magazine and on the front page of the New York Times all in the same week, has been interviewed at length about his study by The Epidemiology Monitor. The interview will appear in the June issue.

According to Snowdon, “...when I started 15 years ago, aging wasn’t a particularly desirable area to go in to and most of the the epidemiologists were flocking to cancer or cardiovascular disease. I figured--do we really need another cardiovascular epidemiologist? And with the progress we’ve made in prevention of chronic diseases, we need to know more about old age.”

To read the entire interview, obtain the June issue of the Epi Monitor.

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