Data Driven Decisions

Is the US an extreme outlier in Healthcare per Capita?

2011-02-24T23:01:00.008-05:00

Data from OECD, 2007, Health at a Glance 2007; OECD Indicators

For Further discussion see this post on the Incidental Economist, particularly the comment section.

2010-05-03T11:06:00.001-04:00

via

Gay Marriage

2009-11-10T11:04:00.009-05:00

I don't know if there is any issue with such a generational divide...

It currently appears that it's only a matter time before legalization.

Nate Silver projects when each state will legalize gay marriage via a regression model with the following variables:
1. The year in which (a gay marriage type) amendment was voted upon;
2. The percentage of adults in 2008 Gallup tracking surveys who said that religion was an important part of their daily lives;
3. The percentage of white evangelicals in the state.

He projects about half of states will legalize by 2014 and the rest by 2024. I personally think the status quo bias is a bit stronger than that and it'll take a little longer...

*Edit - Nate Sliver actually projects "the dates when the model predicts that each of the 50 states would vote against a marriage ban." The dates seem a bit more resonable now, but i still would be more conservative in the projections. Though maybe we've hit a tipping point?

Childbirth and Evolution

2009-10-29T12:50:00.004-04:00

From Half the Sky:

"One reason women die in childbirth has to do with anatomy, arising from two basic evolutionary trade-offs. The first is that once our ancient ancestors began to walk upright, too large a pelvis made upright walking and running inefficient and exhausting. A narrow pelvis permits fast running. That however makes childbirth exceedingly difficult. So the evolutionary adaptation is that women generally have medium-sized pelvises that permit moderately swift locomotion and allow them to survive childbirth - most of the time.

The other trade-off is head size. Beginning with our Cro-Magnon ancestors, human skull size expanded to accommodate more complex brains. Larger brains offer an evolutionary advantage once a child is born, but they increase the chance that a large-headed fetus will never emerge alive from the mother."

Lag

2009-10-29T12:40:00.003-04:00

2009-10-08T10:05:00.000-04:00

Improving Self Reported BMI

2009-10-07T08:43:00.004-04:00

Many epidemiological studies measure adiposity (obesity) through the surrogate BMI via self reported measures of height and weight. As I have mentioned before, there are many problems with this. But how can we improve on this while maintaining our level of accuracy and not using a direct measure requiring a more intensive doctor visit?

Two ideas to use along with BMI:

1. Waist size - pant size for men, dress size for women

2. Bench press - probably more reasonable for men. Could use max (weight you can bench press once), or weight you can bench press ten times.

Does the NCAA Selection Committee Use Regression Analysis?

2009-03-16T16:13:00.005-04:00

The committees job is to pick and rank the 65 best college basketball teams (including those who won their conference tournaments). They want to choose the teams that are most likely to win games in the NCAA tournament. Now, regression analysis seems like a perfect tool for this type of dilemma, but does the selection committee use it?

Based on the slow involvement of statistics in other sports, my guess is no.

When college basketball experts talk about using "computers", I fear they are only talking comparing team's RPIs and Strength of Schedules via an eye test. The problem with these two measurements is that they are co-linear (a statistical way of saying too similar). All teams that have crappy RPIs are going to have crappy SOSs, like Penn State, since SOS is a part of RPI. Do we know how likely these measures predict success? I don't know, but there is a lot data from previous tournaments and it would be easy to determine. However, RPI and SOS would only explain a portion of the variability of the model. There are a lot of other variables that should be considered like record in the last 10 games, previous performance in tournaments, margin of victory, and potential injuries to key players. If these variables could help better predict a winning outcome (explain more of the variability in the model) then they should be included.

Yeah it's a human decision, and the committee does look at these variables and takes them into account. But there is a huge amount of bias in a purely human decision. It should be the human's decision to determine the variables in the regression analysis that makes the final decision. The committee may think that RPI is the most important variable and deserves the most weight. This may be true, but their assumption should at least be tested by regression.

During the selection show last night a committee member started to explain how they chose Arizona/Dayton over the other bubble teams. He emphasized that teams chosen were based on playing a competitive schedule throughout the year and winning quality games away from home. Of course Penn State had two huge road wins (MSU, Illinois) and Arizona didn't have any (and were 1-5 in their last six games). It's quite possible that the regression could have chosen the same 65 teams, but it would be interesting to see the analysis.

Say Goodbye to Humanities?

2009-02-26T18:15:00.004-05:00

Cool Article in the NYT on the decline seen in humanities:

It's not too surprising since the cost of education has dramatically increased, students have desired more return for their education. Now many don't have the luxury of studying less directly applicable areas. I also wonder if humanities degrees were artificially high in the 60s and 70s from all those hippies. haha

I agree in the article's point that Obama benefit the humanities field in multiple ways. He is a role model to many and he seems to greatly respect literature and philosophy. He also plans to make it more affordable to go to school through programs like the GI Bill and increased student aid. However, if the economy doesn't turn around, those points will probably be moot.

How Reliable is Health Advice?

2009-02-25T18:06:00.004-05:00

Via the Health Blog:

Just 11% of more than 2,700 established heart recommendations are backed by high-quality testing, says a study in the current issue of JAMA.

The American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association jointly issue guidelines to doctors, WSJ explains. The ones thought to have the highest level of evidence are based on multiple randomized clinical trials. Those considered weakest are backed by expert opinion or case studies.

According to the JAMA paper there are three type of sources:
1. Sources based on multiple randomized clinical trials (high quality testing)
2. Sources based on a single randomized clinical trial or observational study (moderate)
3. Sources based on case studies, expert opinion - etc (poor)

As an epidemiologist, I will probably spend most of my time dealing with observational studies in the moderate category. While not "high quality", these are still important since many randomized control trials can not be conducted because of ethical, feasibility, and financial reasons. For example, we can't ethically conduct a randomized control trial on whether smoking causes lung cancer - since there is substantial evidence that we would inflecting harm in our control arm.

However, randomized clinical trials (RCTs) should be used whenever possible because they are removing many biases and confounding from the relationship of interest. A classic case of the benefit of RCTs is Hormone Replacement Theory (HRT) in women. The Nurses Health Study and others found a protective effect on mortality for HRT in several of their observational studies. Their evidence looked so convincing that hundreds of thousands of women went on the therapy. That was until randomized clinical trial results found that it can increase breast cancer and disease risk.

Getting back to the JAMA article, it's pretty scary when you think about. Heart Disease is America's biggest killer, and quite possibly the most widely studied disease. What this says is that there is a lot of work to do in the health field and that there will be a lot of reversals, ala HRT, of doctor opinion in future recommendations.

On a positive to note, I'm happy to say that we're headed in the right direction with this $1.1 billion dollar allocation to compartive effectiveness research in the stimulus package. Maybe Billy Beane had Mr. Obama's ear?

NYT: Index Funds Win Again

2009-02-23T22:21:00.003-05:00

I am a big fan of index funds, owing shares in three of them. So I was happy to read this recent article:

Mr. Kritzman calculates that just to break even with the index fund, net of all expenses, the actively managed fund would have to outperform it by an average of 4.3 percentage points a year on a pre-expense basis. For the hedge fund, that margin would have to be 10 points a year.

The chances of finding such funds are next to zero, said Russell Wermers, a finance professor at the University of Maryland. Consider the 452 domestic equity mutual funds in the Morningstar database that existed for the 20 years through January of this year. Morningstar reports that just 13 of those funds beat the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index by at least four percentage points a year, on average, over that period. That’s less than 3 out of every 100 funds.

We'll see with these changing market conditions whether active mutual funds can continue their success of (almost always) swindling their clients.

Measuring Fat by MRI

2009-02-23T14:27:00.003-05:00

A striking image that won a National Geographic Picture of Year award. The images are full body MRI shots of two women: 5'6" 250 lbs on the left, 5'5" 120 lbs on the right.

Looks like there is a lot of alteration in most areas of the body except for brain and maybe the ankle area. I wonder if pictures like these could be used for the fight against obesity?

1979 vs. 2009

2009-02-15T22:28:00.003-05:00

The New York Times and CBS has some nice new data out on a range of controversial issues. In this PDF, they compare the data to records they have from the late 1970s.

Here are a few I found notable:

HEALTH INSURANCE: PRIVATE ENTERPRISE VS. GOVERNMENT?

1979
Private Enterprise: 48%
Government - All Problems: 28%
Government - Emergencies: 12%
Don't know: 12%

2009
Private Enterprise: 32% (-16%)
Government - All Problems: 49% (+21%)
Government - Emergencies: 10% (-2%)
Don't know: 9% (-3%)
HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONS BETWEEN ADULTS
1979
Wrong: 62%
Not Wrong: 25%
2009
Wrong: 41% (-21%)
Not Wrong: 54% (+29%)
SHOULD MARIJUANA USE BE LEGALIZED?
1979
Yes: 27%
No: 69%
2009
Yes: 41% (+14%)
No: 52% (-17%)
WHO MAKES BETTER CARS?

1979
U.S. Automakers - 46%
Foreign Automakers - 26%

2009
U.S. Automakers - 29% (-17%)
Foreign Automakers - 55% (+29%)

Hat tip to this daily kos diary

Most Popular Big Cites

2009-02-03T17:50:00.003-05:00

Another cool study by Pew Research Center:

I noticed, now that we're in the dead of winter, that most of the top cities are in warmer climates. I've never been to Denver (which seems to buck my observation), but maybe the air up there is just making them happy.

Teenage Sex Stats

2009-01-27T19:47:00.004-05:00

From the Latest Well Article from Tara Parker-Pope:

Today, fewer than half of all high school students have had sex: 47.8 percent as of 2007, according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, down from 54.1 percent in 1991.

A less recent report suggests that teenagers are also waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. A 2002 report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that 30 percent of 15- to 17-year-old girls had experienced sex, down from 38 percent in 1995. During the same period, the percentage of sexually experienced boys in that age group dropped to 31 percent from 43 percent.

About 16 percent of teenagers say they have had oral sex but haven't yet had intercourse.

"I give presentations nationwide where I'm showing people that the virginity rate in college is higher than you think and the number of partners is lower than you think and hooking up more often than not does not mean intercourse," Dr. Bogle said. "But so many people think we're morally in trouble, in a downward spiral and teens are out of control. It's very difficult to convince people otherwise."

I wonder how these sex rates compare to the 1960s and 70s. Have rates significantly increased or are parents just hypocrites? While the given oral sex statistic is interesting, I wonder how many sexually active teens engage in oral sex. It sounds like the article is assuming that basically all of the sexually active teens engage in both.

Ryan Howard's Arbitration Case

2009-01-23T18:53:00.004-05:00

I have been frequenting fangraphs.com recently, which is a great site for lots of cool baseball data and analysis. I recommend it for all the baseball stat nerds out there.

Recently Ryan Howard, the Phillies first base slugger, is in the news for having the biggest difference between arbitration figures submitted. Howard is asking for 18 million, while the Phillies submitted a figure of 14 million. Last year, in his first arbitration year, Howard took home a record 10 million for actually taking his case to arbitration judges and winning.

So in terms of arbitration, major league players have three arbitration years. Howard is in his 2nd year. According to Fangraphs, estimates on what players get are 40% of their free market value their 1st year, 60% their 2nd year, and 80% their 3rd year. So Howard should be getting about 60 percent of his free market value.

The Phillies with their 14 million dollar offer, think Howard is worth 19.6 million/year.
Howard with his 18 million dollar suggestion, thinks he's worth 25.2 million/year.

So basically Howard thinks he deserves the 2nd highest contract in league after ARod, who makes 27.5 million/year.

Looking at Fangraphs data, here are what the top Phillies were "worth" based on last year's production:

1. Chase Utley: 35.7 million
2. Jimmy Rollins: 23.1 million
3. Jayson Werth: 21.3 million
4. Cole Hamels: 20.6 million
5. Shane Victarino: 17.0 million
6. Ryan Howard: 14.1 million

The stats take into account his defense, replacement level (1b) performance, OPS (which went down .100 this year), and many other measures.

Howard has regressed the past three years, but considering his great 2nd half he will hopefully preform better next year. The Phils take that into account giving him a "19.6 million/year" deal (5.5 million more than he "made" last year).

Yes - Howard wants the 2nd "highest" salary in the major leagues, when he was potentially the 6th most valuable Philly last year.

It will be interesting to see what happens if this goes to arbitration. Do these arbitration judges think like MVP voters (Howard finished 2nd in NL MVP voting) or do they take into account statistics other than HR and RBI? I think either way Howard will lose his case.

EDIT:
A good point (by a fangraphs contributor) was made that needs to be considered.

He basically believes that Howard cannot be considered like a typical arbitration case, which would normally fall under the 40/60/80 rule. The problem with Howard is that the Phillies took awhile (age 26?) in calling him up (since they had Thome). Assuming the arbitration judges aren't ignorant like MVP voters, they probably rewarded Howard 10 million last year because he really should be in his 3rd year of arbitration (not his 2nd). I can understand that logic a bit more. If you make that assumption, Howard only thinks he's worth 21.6 million, which is a bit high but more understandable. In the above article, the fangraphs author used 2009 projections to calculate that Howard would be worth approximately 15 million (assuming he's in his "third" year of arb.)

So it could go either way I guess, but I still don't think he's worth the money.

Stat of the Week: Hospitials as Hotels

2009-01-23T18:44:00.003-05:00

According to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research

"We also find that a one-standard-deviation increase in amenities raises a hospital's demand by 38.4% on average, whereas demand is substantially less responsive to clinical quality as measured by pneumonia mortality."

-It's interesting they used pneumonia mortality as a measure of clinical quality. I can only read the abstract, but I would assume that they adjusted for confounders and such like a good epidemiologist would do.

Media Attention and Risk Perception

2009-01-23T18:32:00.005-05:00

From a Freaknomics interview of author Ben Sherwood:

Can a positive outcome to a crash like USAir 1549 change often unrealistic public perceptions of the fatality of plane crashes?

I doubt it. It’s incredibly safe to fly — your chances of dying on your next domestic flight are just one in 60 million — but many Americans are still petrified of air travel.

It’s no surprise: Plane crashes monopolize media coverage. Indeed, one MIT study found that airplane crash coverage on the front page of The New York Times was 60 times greater than reporting on HIV/AIDS per 1,000 deaths; 1,500 times greater than reporting on auto hazards; and 6,000 times greater than cancer.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, the key to this passage is they only looked at the front page. Still, it's very interesting and telling on why our perceived risks rarely match the actual risks.

Our (Potential) Future Surgeon General and Marijuana Legalization

2009-01-12T12:44:00.010-05:00

Before I begin, I implore to you watch this Daily Show clip on Dr. Gupta. Aasif Mandvi does a great job. I hadn't laughed that hard in awhile. (start at minute 2 for the good stuff)

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Medicine Cabinet

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Anyway, Dr. Gupta recently wrote an article for Time Magazine entitled "Why I would vote No on Pot". I'm pretty disappointed in this article by our (potential) future surgeon general. He brings to light both sides of the issue, but I don't think he argues his case very well.

So what did he bring up in the article (which leaves out other valid arguments for both sides):

positives of legalizing pot
- can help really sick people - those going through chemo, and those suffering from Alzheimer's
- 15 million people all ready use it, so wouldn't have to enforce law on them
- cut illegal drug trafficking and make communities safer

negatives of legalizing pot
- addiction
- affect short term memory
- impair cognitive ability
- lead to long term depression or anxiety
- can impair driving - cause accidents

First off I am disappointed by the lack of statistics. From this article I have no idea how severely pot affects short term memory, leads to long term depression, etc. A reasonable question would be, how do these negatives compare to alcohol? It seems that alcohol shares all of these negative consequences and is potentially worse in some cases. He also suggests outcomes that are rather subjective like depression, cognitive ability, etc. It is not nearly as clear cut as tobacco's relationship to lung cancer and other disease. I don't doubt his medical claims, but he should at least link to scientific/epidemiological studies supporting it.

So how authoritarian is Sanjay Gupta? Yes, it would be better medically if we banned alcohol and soda - but is it the right move for the country? There are reasonable reasons to keep marijuana illegal, but Dr. Gupta needs to bring a little more substance to his argument. Granted this was just a short article for Time Magazine, but adding links similar to Frank Rich's style at the New York Times would be refreshing.

One of my major reasons for reluctance of Gupta for Surgeon General is his lack of public health training or experience. If this is the way he would describe a public health epidemic in the future as surgeon general, consider me unimpressed.

Looking further at the Marijuana issue as a whole:

Gallup polling has explored the legalization of Marijuana question for years, and while support is still on Dr. Gupta's side the margin is eroding.

When asked if medical marijuana should be legalized, support jumps into the 70 percent range. Dr. Gupta points out that 11 states have all ready decriminalized marijuana for medical use. I honestly believe that polling (on legalization of both medical and recreational) would change if people were more informed on this subject.

For example, there is a very valid economic argument that would play well in today's economic situation.

Jeffery Miron an economist from Harvard conservatively estimates that the US could receive 14 billion dollars a year from the legalization of marijuana. "...the government would save $7.7 billion a year if it didn't have to spend money policing and prosecuting marijuana activity. Then, if the feds taxed marijuana at a rate comparable to cigarettes and booze, another $6.2 billion would come rolling in."

It will be interesting to see if any "change" is made on this issue with the Obama administration, considering it's the "#1 Idea" proposed on their site change.org.

How Do Men Die in the Prime of their Lives?

2008-12-27T00:07:00.011-05:00

My friends and I are reaching a milestone soon - a quarter century lived. Our own deaths are probably very far from our minds, and for good reason: about 2 percent of male deaths come from the 25-34 category. So while small, it is not insignificant and worth looking at.

According to the CDC in 2004 - the following are the top ten causes of death for males in the United States between the ages of 25-34.

1. Unintentional Injury - 34.8%
2. Suicide - 14.6%
3. Homicide - 13.3%
4. Heart Disease - 7.6%
5. Cancer - 6.2%
6. HIV Disease - 3.2%
7. Diabetes - 1.2 %
8. Stroke - 1.0%
9. Birth Defects - 0.8%
10. Chronic Liver Disease - 0.8%

Unsurprisingly, most of the deaths are not related to traditional disease: accidents (probably mostly automobile), suicide, and murder. This possibly suggests the need for better mental health counseling, which is an area I know very little about - including it's effectiveness and differences between nations.

What surprised me the most in these numbers is the rate of heart disease. Every year a couple of thousand in this young age group are dying of heart disease. I'm interested to know who these people are. Do they have some genetic defect that makes them especially vulnerable? Do they smoke a lot? Are they morbidly obese?

I'll break down the cancer rates in a later post, but younger males should look for cancer in the testis, the blood cancers (lymphoma), and skin cancer (melanoma).

When broadening to include females and between 25-44...

Causes of Death	Number of Deaths	Rate per 100,000
25-44 years All causes	148,904	177.8
1 Accidents and adverse effects	26,554	31.7
. . . Motor vehicle accidents	14,528	17.3
. . . All other accidents and adverse effects	12,026	14.4
2 Human immunodeficiency virus infection	22,795	27.2
3 Malignant neoplasms, including neoplasms of lymphatic and hematopoietic tissues	22,147	26.4
4 Diseases of heart	16,261	19.4
5 Suicide	12,536	15
6 Homicide and legal intervention	9,261	11.1
7 Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis	4,230	5.1
8 Cerebrovascular diseases	3,418	4.1
9 Diabetes mellitus	2,520	3
10 Pneumonia and influenza	1,972	2.4
. . . All other causes (Residual)	27,210	32.5

You can notice the homicide and suicide rates are down, while Cancer and HIV increase. However this data is a bit older (1996), so the HIV mortality rate has gone down in recent years.

A Look Back at my Election Predictions

2008-12-18T07:59:00.016-05:00

Predictions:

House: D - 260, R - 175

Senate: D - 58, R- 40

Presidential EV: 368-170 Obama

Popular Vote: 53.6 to 45.1 Obama

Actual:

House: D - 257, R - 178

Senate: D - 57, R - 41 (assuming Franken wins)

Presidential EV: 365-173 Obama

Presidential PV: 52.9 to 45.7 Obama

Not too shabby. I was correct on every state except Montana, which was closer than expected. The pollsters did a pretty good job this year with all the variables they needed to take into account: the new voters, the cell phone effect, bradley effect, and the shy tory factor among others. I thought the cell phone effect would boost Obama up a little more than it did, but I was still within about 1 percentage point. I'm sure if I had confidence intervals (which I should have), the actual results would have been within them.

In the House and Senate races the republicans did a little better than expected. With Bush's favorablity rating hovering in the low 20s, it's pretty impressive how several of his supporters held onto their house seats. It's interesting that many of those who lost were on the moderate side, leaving mostly more conservative republicans left. I think this election as a whole indicates that Change was definitely desired, but the Democrats will need to show real progress in the next 2 and 4 years if they want to keep their command.

If you're interested, check out how the "expert" pundits did on predicting election. It was probably a lot of luck, but I did better than almost all of them.

Women Concentrate on the Wrong Organ (too)

2008-12-14T02:44:00.007-05:00

Fear is an interesting concept that I hope to explore more in the future.

In a 2005 study by Women's Health Research, over 1000 women were asked - which disease they feared the most. I was rather surprised they found the fear of Breast Cancer more than doubled Heart Disease. While Breast Cancer caused approximately 3% of the US deaths in 2005, over 22 percent have the most fear for the disease. On the other hand, heart disease accounts for 28.6 percent of diseases and only 9.7 percent consider their top fear!! I know the US society has placed a higher emphasis of breasts over heart, but I can't say I expected this.

Fear Rank	Disease	Women's Most Feared Diseases	Cause of Death in Women	Difference
1	Cancer (unspecified)	24.00%	21.60%	2.40%
2	Breast Cancer	22.10%	3.24%	18.86%
3	Heart Disease	9.70%	28.60%	-18.90%
4	HIV/AIDS	9.30%	2%	7.30%
5	Alzheimer’s Disease	4.60%	3.40%	1.20%
6	Ovarian Cancer	2.70%	1.30%	1.40%
7	Lung Cancer	2.40%	5.62%	-3.22%
8	Diabetes	2.40%	3.10%	-0.70%
9	Colon Cancer	1.60%	1.94%	-0.34%
10	Stroke	1.20%	8.00%	-6.80%

So what are the possible explanations for this?

High Incidence?
-While the mortality of breast cancer is low, there is a significant amount of women living and bravely battling the disease. On the other hand, the same can be said about heart disease.

Feeling of Control
-While risk factors such as diet, obesity, and hormones have been established, the cause for breast cancer can still be considered quite a mystery. So most women likely believe that she could develop BC and don't have the power to control it. The risk factors for heart disease - (diet, physical activity, smoking) are a bit more established, so women's feeling of control may be stronger for CHD.

Public Exposure
-Another explanation is that breast cancer has had stronger activists, fundraisers, and lobbyists that push the disease into the mainstream. The general wisdom may be that since Breast Cancer is getting the same or more ad time than Heart Disease - women's risk of death are great for BC.

*Edit*
Age of Disease
Women may believe that they are more likely to get Breast Cancer at a younger age than Heart Disease. According to SEER the median age of dianosis is 61, while the median age of death is 69. For heart disease the average age of a first heart attack is around 70 years old (though the disease can be caught at a much earlier stage).

Women still believe it's a male disease
The stereotypical person with heart disease (at least in my mind) is an overweight, red faced guy in a suit. Women only comprise of about 25 percent of heart studies, and things like this need to change.

Conclusion:
Heart disease kills about 8 times the women than Breast Cancer. The medical community needs to do a better job about expressing this risk. Maybe when people go to their primary doc, they should be asked this "what disease do you fear the most" question. Then the education can begin. Another idea is instead of counseling by doctor, people should have a "medical counclier" who discuss peoples risk of disease and what they can do for prevention. According to the Women's Heart fact sheet only 2 percent of the NIH budget is spent on prevention, and that is just flat out wrong .

2005 data from:
CDC
Women's Health Research
Women's Heart Fact Sheet

The All-Time Greatest College Football Teams: Where are they Headed?

2008-12-13T14:00:00.006-05:00

(rankings as of 12/3/08, click on table for larger image)

The teams highlighted blue are likely to advance in the rankings in the future, while the teams in red look like they will fall based on the last ten year win percentage, 2009 recruiting rank, and current BCS rank. Any suggestions on how to make this more scientific?

Teams with a conference championship (Big Twelve, SEC) have a slight advantage. I also give an advantage t0 two teams with nice locations (USC, Texas). Let's not kid ourselves - many good players would rather play in the sun at USC instead of frigid State College. Notice Alabama has the worst win percentage in the last ten year, but seems to be turning it around with a nice year and a quality recruiting class. Nebraska and Tennessee seemed to be failing out of the spotlight lately, and with poor performances on the field and with recruiting it will be tough to regain momentum. Notre Dame has really lost it's luster lately, and it doesn't look like Charlie Weis will be the one to bring them back.

Pretty amazing how these powerhouses just keep going. Five of the top 10 teams are going to be playing the top tier bowls.

Notes:
1. Win percentage statistics generated by stassen.

2. rankings of non-bcs teams from usa today.

3. 2009 recruiting rankings from rivals

Vaccines, Autism, and the Stupid Media

2008-12-10T08:10:00.010-05:00

From the Economist:

Why the sudden spike in Measles when we have a vaccine?

"The rise, says the HPA, is due to a fall in vaccination rates. In 1998 91% of two-year-olds were immunised, but by 2004 that had fallen to 80%, far below the 90% rate needed to keep the disease under control....Happily, the dip in vaccination seems to have been temporary. Immunisation rates today are 85% and rising"

Why the drop in Vaccination rate?

Thank you Dr. Wakefield....

"In the UK, the MMR vaccine was the subject of controversy after publication of a 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield et al. reporting a study of twelve children who had autism spectrum disorders and bowel symptoms, in many cases with onset observed soon after administration of MMR vaccine.[23] During a 1998 press conference, Wakefield suggested that giving children the vaccines in three separate doses would be safer than a single injection. This suggestion was not supported by the paper, and several subsequent peer-reviewed studies have failed to show any association between the vaccine and autism.[24] Administering the vaccines in three separate doses does not reduce the chance of adverse effects, and it increases the opportunity for infection by the two diseases not immunized against first.[24][25] Health experts have criticized media reporting of the MMR-autism controversy for triggering a decline in vaccination rates.[26]
In 2004, after an investigation by The Sunday Times,[27] the interpretation section of the study, which identified a general association in time between the vaccine and autism, was formally retracted by ten of Wakefield's twelve coauthors.[28] The Centers for Disease Control,[29] the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences,[30] the UK National Health Service [31] and the Cochrane Library review[9] have all concluded that there is no evidence of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
In 2007 Wakefield became the subject of a General Medical Council disciplinary hearing over allegations that his research had received funding related to litigation against MMR-vaccine manufacturers, and had concealed this fact from the editors of The Lancet.[32] It was later revealed that Wakefield received £435,643 [about $780,000] plus expenses for consulting work related to the lawsuit. This funding came from the UK legal aid fund, a fund intended to provide legal services to the poor.[27]"

It's sad what the scientifically illiterate media has done to this issue. I'm also disappointed in the political leaders like Tony Blair who would not reveal if his child was vaccinated or not. You don't mess with diseases like Measles when there is no scientific or epidemiological backup on the subject. Some random doctor speculating does not count...

Stat of the Week: Health Care Costs

2008-11-29T23:34:00.007-05:00

According to 2005 Paul Krugman article at the New York Times:

The following is per capita spending on Health Care

United States: $5,267 on health care/ $2,364 is government spending.
Canada: $2,931 on health care / $2,048 is government spending.
France: $2,736 on health care / $2,080 is government spending.

It's amazing how high our health care spending is. Hard to believe that our government spending on health care (medicare, medicaid, etc) is more than Canada and France's govt spending! My thoughts are that the biggest faults are the administrative costs that come with our insurance system. However I'm starting to believe that United States does not evaluate health decisions correctly, for instance over-emphasizing screening that does not extend or improve lives. More on this later, but as you can see in the following graph...yeah it's a problem.

US Trend in Tobacco Use and Lung Cancer Mortality

2008-11-26T11:25:00.011-05:00

A question was proposed in the comments of the previous entry - how has smoking rate changed after the GIs had been given cigarettes in their rations during World War 2 (early 1940s).

The following graphic displays this trend well. It also shows the lag in time of tobacco use to lung cancer mortality. It's nice to see both the cigarrette consumption and lung cancer mortality decreasing, but sadly this is not true in developing asian and african countries where ciagrette use is becoming very common.

Source: ACS 2008 Cancer Statistics Presentation

The graphic below displays the amount of different cancer deaths that can be attributed to smoking. Lung cancer greatly outranks the rest of the cancers, with an attribute rate of 80-90 percent. However only 20 percent or so of smokers end up with lung cancer, due to other risk factors such as genetics, amount smoked, etc.

Source: ACS Cancer Facts and Figures

Top Cancers in the United States

2008-11-25T20:22:00.011-05:00

Here are the most popular figures in general cancer epidemiology - a flavor of things to come for this blog. Please share ideas on what to show in the future.

Notice how deadly Lung, Pancreas , and Leukemia - comparing their incidence and mortality rates. It's interesting how little you hear about Pancreas, Ovary, etc - it's probably because the 5 years survival is so low that there is much less pressure to lobby for these diseases. Overall Men have a 1 in 2 chance of developing cancer in their lifetime, while Women have a 1 in 3 chance.

The jump in prostate cancer in the early 90s is due the PSA screening coming into the mainstream. PSA screening is still controversial today - it has not been proven to extend/save lives as of yet. With prostate cancer's five year survival rate of 99 percent, epidemiologists are asking: should we put putting men through this?

Male death rates over time - notice how lung how over-trumped them all due to tobacco use. The disappearance of stomach cancer is still a bit mysterious.

Lung cancer has recently become the number 1 killer for females, due to a later development of tobacco use. Breast and colon cancer, which diet is a major risk factor, are well ahead of the rest of the cancers

Stat of the Week: Tobacco Deaths

2008-11-14T10:54:00.001-05:00

"But if global adult smoking prevalence declines to 20% by 2020, at least 100 million fewer people currently alive will be killed prematurely by tobacco."

How to prevent 100 million deaths from tobacco
Thomas R Frieden, Michael R Bloomberg

This sums it up pretty well....

2008-11-05T19:12:00.002-05:00

Election Predictions

2008-11-03T18:35:00.009-05:00

DataDrivenDecision's Predictions

Electoral College:

368 Obama Electoral Votes
170 McCain Electoral Votes
(Obama takes Kerry States + IA, NM, CO, VA, NV, OH, FL, NC, MT, IN, and NE-2)

Popular Vote:

53.6 Obama Popular Vote Percentage
45.1 McCain Popular Vote Percentage

Senate:

58 Democratic Senate seats
40 Republican Senate seats

- Top Senate races (my prediction):
1. Minnesota (D) - closest race
2. Georgia (D)
3. North Carolina (D)
4. Kentucky (R)
5. Alaska (D)
6. Oregon (D)
7. New Hampshire (D)
8. Mississippi (R)
9. Colorado (D)
10. Nebraska (R)

House:

260 Democratic House seats
175 Republican House seats

Overall Commentary:
-This prediction is pretty optimistic for the Dems, but I believe the polls are currently underestimating Obama and Dem support due to the cell phone effect and the difference in "ground games". If McCain wins - the polls will have made a historic miscalculation, which the general consensus being Obama +7.
-A few reasons for a McCain underestimation would be a poor response rate for polls (phone polls ~20% which could miss unenthusiastic republican voters who will still show up to the polls - or the Shy Tory Factor), overestimating of youth vote, and possibly the Bradley effect in a few states.

What to watch for:
1. See Nate Silver's column in Newsweek for presidential race
2. Will the Dems get 58 seats in the senate (60 seat filibusterer with Is)? - Watch Ga, Ky, and Mn if it's close
-How many house seats will the Dems pick up? See my prediction above, but I'll be watching MD-01, CT-04, MN-06, AZ-04, CA-04, AK-Al, FL-21, Fl-25, MO-08, WA-09, PA-03, PA-12, SC-01, and WY-AL.

Stat of the Week: Life Expectancies in Baltimore

2008-10-30T19:52:00.001-04:00

20-year life gap separates city's poorest, wealthy

"In West Baltimore's impoverished Hollins Market neighborhood, where the average life expectancy is about 63 years...Across town in wealthy Roland Park, where residents live on average to be 83"

It's crazy how great the dispairites are between two locations within a few miles of each other. Infant mortality and violence are probably the biggest contributors to this difference.

Abortion

2008-10-29T21:28:00.006-04:00

Like the author of this article I believe abortion should be considered a public health problem.

The hypothesis is based on this research paper in the journal international family planning perspectives which comes to this conclusion:

Abortion rates are no lower overall in areas where abortion is generally restricted by law (and where many abortions are performed under unsafe conditions) than in areas where abortion is legally permitted.

The evidence is there to make the correct public health decision - but instead of promoting sex education and other social measures, the United States wastes their time with whole roe vs. wade (life/choice) argument. I feel both sides of the aisle are looking at this problem in the wrong way - we can have life and choice, but we're too blind to see it.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of that research paper and there are probably some flaws in it. However the issue is - why aren't we talking about roe v. wade instead of just saving lives?

Other people are a lot more passionate about this issue than I am, so maybe someone can enlighten me.

Evolution and Science in America

2008-10-23T10:05:00.006-04:00

Via 2006 National Geographic article:
(blue = believes in evolution, red doesn't)

Selected Quotes:

-"In the U.S., only 14 percent of adults thought that evolution was "definitely true," while about a third firmly rejected the idea. "

-"The researchers cite a 2005 study finding that 78 percent of adults agreed that plants and animals had evolved from other organisms. In the same study, 62 percent also believed that God created humans without any evolutionary development."
-"Fewer than half of American adults can provide a minimal definition of DNA, the authors add. "

My thoughts:

-We need to teach and emphasize genetics much earlier in school (elementary). You can make better inferences about a wide range of topics - history, science, even English when you understand genetics.

-Since a majority of Americans are now required to go to college - all students, particularly liberal arts majors should be required to take some type of biology/genetics class. We need to avoid the hubris of humanities (NYT).

-Get more scientists in public office. According to the above NYT article, there were 218 lawyers, 12 doctors, and 3 biologists in congress in 2005. When 90 percent of our representatives probably have a weak science background, we're probably going to fall behind. See the recent examples of stem cells, climate change, research funding, and bioethics.

Stat of the Week

2008-10-22T16:35:00.002-04:00

Johns Hopkins study - number of deaths in Iraq

Estimated 654,965 additional deaths in Iraq between March 2003 and July 2006

Now over 1 million?

Income Distribution

2008-10-21T13:17:00.004-04:00

A nice graphic from the economist:

A few things that stand out to me:
-The United States seems the most positively skewed - mean is much greater than the median (5th line)
-There is a significant proportion in the US in the lowest decile compared with other developed countries - Canada, Britain, France...
-US has largest top decile by a fair margin

It would be interesting to see this over statistic over time. I'm guessing that our country has always had a larger range than the other countries. I think it's pretty fair to think that this was constantly changing (under every presidential administration).

What is up with Michigan?

2008-10-17T10:29:00.003-04:00

I am bit biased against Michigan because of one of their football teams currently holds a 9 game winning streak against my alma mater (which will hopefully be broken tomorrow).

However, I found this story which we discussed in class especially odd:

The NYT described it like this: "1,000 people who attended a ''rave'' in Michigan and allegedly shared a pacifier dipped in the drug Ecstasy were urged to see a doctor after meningitis was diagnosed in one of them."

-Not only is the pacifier part a bit weird, but supposiedly these teens attended this rave in the middle of a corn field. Really a cornfield?!

Stat of the Week

2008-10-17T10:06:00.003-04:00

According to the New Yorker:

"By far the biggest theft problem faced by retailers, however, is employee theft, which accounts for nearly 47% of profit erosion."

(from a 2005 Florida Study - companies lost 1.61 percent of sales to theft or fraud)

I am naive about this subject, but I feel it would be more cost effective on preventing this rather than shoplifters (who make up 33 percent of this sample). You have to consider the negative consequences of attempting to prevent customers from shoplifting like false positives (angry customers leading to lost businness, lawsuits/punitive damges). An earlier version of the study states: "While the average shoplifting incident costs the retailer $212.68, an employee theft averages $1,058.20 per incident."

Thoughts:
Investigate Employee Crime more
Replace employees with self-check out machines/robots in the future?

Election Thoughts

2008-10-10T08:20:00.001-04:00

- Obama's is about 6 to 7 points up depending on which national tracker you look at. I consider polls have a margin of error of about 4 to 5 points, so Obama is looking pretty good now. That being said there are several reasons that election night will still be interesting.

1. McCain makes national gains in the next 3+ weeks. There are many different scenarios in which this is possible considering where the race was 2 weeks ago. I think Democrats are bit too over confident right now, if that's possible. Assuming McCain does come back there could be some crazy scenarios that I'd like to highlight.

A) Electoral Tie of 269/269. This scenario looked quite possible 2 weeks ago. Obama would have to win all Kerry State except New Hampshire (currently +5.3 obama), and McCain would have to win all Bush States except Colorado (+4.6 obama), Iowa (+10.7 obama), and New Mexico (+6.2 obama) for this to happen. With the recent Obama surge in Ohio, Florida, and Virgina - this doesn't look likely (Sliver has it at a 0.16 probablity). However if McCain made national gains, it does seem possible.

Check out the link above for more, but it looks like it would go to the newly elected house for a vote, and then a senate if as the tiebreaker. One would think this would favor the democrats - but things like popular vote, voter recounts ala florida 2000 (that would be decided by conservative supreme court), need to be taken into account.

B) Maine and Nebraska actually allocate their electoral votes by congressional district
Maine is +7.5 Obama, only 1 point above the national average. The districts in Maine vote approxamiately the same though, so McCain may want to pick one and see if he can turn it red. Nebraska is a deep red state, but has a moderate district that includes Omaha, that Obama could turn blue (but only if it's a blowout - less likely to break a 269-268 ties).

C) Election day surprises?
If it is a good day for McCain - Minnesota and Iowa. These are actually the only two "swing" states that McCain has spent more campaign money than Obama in. Democrats currently believe he's wasting his money, but if McCain mangies to surprise these could be the ones.

If it is a good day for Obama - Indiana, West Virgina, North Carolina, and Georgia. If Obama wins any of these states it will likely be a blow out. Obama's "ground game" has gotten rave reviews, so suprises could happen on these relatively red states because of several different demographic factors.

2. In case of Obama Blowout - Senate races

If Obama wins easily, the analysts will be staying up late on election night trying to figure out if the democrats are able to get a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the senate. If this happens, it is much more likely that Obama's proposed policies will come to fruition.

Nate Silver currently projects the odds of a 60 seat majority at about 25 percent (see below). The 7 interesting states to watch will be Oregon, Minnesota, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Alaska. If results are less favorable for democrats, Colorado and New Hampshire should be a tight race. Basically the Dems need to turn 9 currently republican held senate seats to turn blue. 4 currently look like they are close to a lock, then Dems need 5 of those 7 states I mentioned above for the 60 seat majority. It looks doubtful, but possible.

Fat Asians

2008-10-08T21:53:00.012-04:00

Obesity is a huge emerging problem that I talked about last month. The most common measurement is BMI, which is flawed in many ways. BMI or Body Mass Index measures your weight compared to your height. It does not take into account muscle or particularly kind of fat (healthly or non-healthly). Muscular men seem to be considered overweight (>25 kg/m^2) or obese (>30 kg/m^2) even appearing very fit and having very low % body fat.

Muscular men are not the only ones mischaracterized by this measure; a 2004 Paper from the Lancet suggests that Asians are at greater risk of obesity related diseases (cardiovascular disease, diabetes) at lower BMIs than Caucasians. Asians appear to have increased subcutaneous and upper body fat that is not captured by the BMIs. These fat measurements can be captured in other ways like body fat percentage....

a study in new york measured the following:

Body Fat % at BMI of 25 kg/m^2
Males: Whites: 19.2, Asians: 23.6

Females: Whites: 34.2 Asians: 36.8

Based on the these finding in others the WHO recommended (pdf) the following:

"For many Asian populations, additional trigger points for
public health action were identified as 23 kg/m2 or higher,
representing increased risk, and 27·5 kg/m2 or higher as
representing high risk. The suggested categories are as
follows: less than 18·5 kg/m2 underweight; 18·5–23 kg/m2
increasing but acceptable risk; 23–27·5 kg/m2 increased
risk; and 27·5 kg/m2 or higher high risk."

To summarize/oversimplify, an overweight Caucasian has a BMI over 25, while an overweight Asian has a BMI over 23. No worries my deceivingly chubby Asian friends, the WHO also mentions that the overweight cutoff varies by Asian population from 22-25. My suggestion for those of all races is to get your body fat percentage measured along with your waist/hip ratio - assuming you need more motivation to eat healthy and exercise (or if you just like numbers). Hopefully in the future the health community can improve on the BMI measure and use a less archaic measurement that is less misleading.

Polling Cell Phones - Missing Obama Votes?

2008-10-03T13:20:00.018-04:00

There is an emerging challenge for pollsters in the 2008 election - polling cell phone users.

Cell phone only users are usually those under 30, a group that has been strongly supporting Barack Obama. For their samples most pollsters use a random digit dialer that call only landlines. Therefore they are missing a lot of younger voters in their polling. To make up for this most (respectable) pollsters stratify their sample, making sure they get enough voters in each subgroup including young voters (<30).

The assumption being made with this stratified studies is that the landline user group adequately represents the whole population of cell phone users. Pew Research group recently looked into this problem and found some interesting results...

More specifically.....
"Combining polls it conducted in August and September, Pew found that of people under age 30 with only cell phones, 62 percent were Democrats and 28 percent Republicans. Among landline users the same age, that gap was narrower: 54 percent Democrats, 36 percent GOP.
Similarly, young cell users preferred Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama over Republican nominee John McCain by 35 percentage points. For young landline users, it was a smaller 13-point Obama edge."
-Baltimore Sun

What could the reason be for this difference? Possibly, cell phone only users are those living in cities and more technologically enabled - two groups that seem to go strong for Obama. In epidemiology speak, age is an effect modifier in this election, and it appears Pew believes "cell phone only use" is a confounder. Nate Silver mentions "Urban voters are about 50 percent more likely to be cellphone-only than rural voters, for instance, and while some pollsters weight by geography, others do not. Thus, you may wind up with a biased sample." So this leads to the possibility that other polling outfits are slightly (unintentionally?) biased towards McCain.

So what can we infer from this?
(Assumptions)
1. Pollsters are using data from the group of young landline users, who are currently +13 Obama.
2. They are inadvertently excluding from the group that is +35 Obama
3. I have seen data stating about 50 percent or more of adults under 30 are cell phone only users (though less likely to vote than their counterparts).
4. Pollsters weigh younger voters under 30, as about 20 percent of the sample.

So according to Pew, pollsters are inputing the +13 Obama data, when they should be inputing +24 Obama data. Assuming that this data is worth 20 percent of the sample, that equals to a 2.2 percent difference in Obama's favor.

Conclusion:
-Polls appear to be under polling Obama by a percentage point or two (estimated 2.2 points) based on this variable alone.

Update:
I'm not sure how I missed this. It's a good summary of what polls use cell phone data. Nate comes up with a similar value +2.8 Obama comapring two sets of data.

700 billion dollars

2008-09-30T12:59:00.007-04:00

Understanding the United States financial woes is a rather difficult task. I'm still trying to get a handle of it myself. My basic thoughts are that we have been accumulating debt and deregulating the markets for several decades now, and it's finally come back to bite us. Corporations job is to turn a profit, it's the government job to regulate and protect the general public. The government has failed us in this instance.

That being said, this article from daily kos does a nice job explaining why a plan is needed, explaining the financial institutions as the heart of the economy.

As you know, the bailout/rescue bill failed yesterday, leading to a major drop in the stock markets around the world. The congressmen (particularly ones up for re-election) have a very difficult decision to make. There have been rumors that calls were made to the congressmen by the general public being 50 or 100 to 1 against the bailout/rescue bill. However you can notice from the markets some kind of bill is essential. I think it's important to remember that this 700 billion isn't all going down the drain, but an investment that could actually make money one day (a risky and possibly bad one though).

It is understandable that tax payers are against with figures like the one in Time Magazine showing how much 700,000,000,000 really is...

Give every person in the United States $2,300 or give every household $6,200
Pay the Income taxes of every American who makes $500,000 or less a year
Fully fund the Defense, Treasury, Education, State, Veterans Affairs and Interior departments next year, as well as NASA
Buy gasoline for every car in the United States for the next 16 months.
You could pay the income taxes for every American who makes $500,000 or less.
You could buy every NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball team and build each one a new stadium - and pay every player $191 million each for a year.
Create the 17th largest economy in the world - roughly equal to that of the Netherlands
You could pay off just 7% of the $9.8 trillion national debt

Cell Phones and Brain Cancer

2008-09-29T22:08:00.016-04:00

Figure 1. Estimation of the penetration of electromagnetic radiation from a cell phone based on age (Frequency GSM 900 Mhz) (On the right, a scale showing the Specific Absorption Rate at different depths, in W/kg) [ ]
Today I saw Devra Davis lecture about her new book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer. In the book she discusses the controversial topic of Cell Phones and Brain Cancer comparing it to the Tobacco/Lung Cancer relationship back in the 50s.

Her main points were:
-We don't have enough evidence to make conclusions one way or another
-Previous studies (which mostly have shown no association) have been biased, cell phone users included anyone who made in a call in the past 6 months
-Huge increase in use has only happened in past ten years, cancer takes 20-30 years to develop.
-Particularly concerned about children's increased use of cell phones, since skulls are thinner and brains aren't not fully myelinated. (see above figure)
----------
This NY Times article provides a more balanced view:

"According to the Food and Drug Administration, three large epidemiology studies since 2000 have shown no harmful effects. CTIA — the Wireless Association, the leading industry trade group, said in a statement, “The overwhelming majority of studies that have been published in scientific journals around the globe show that wireless phones do not pose a health risk."

The F.D.A. notes, however, that the average period of phone use in the studies it cites was about three years, so the research doesn’t answer questions about long-term exposures. Critics say many studies are flawed for that reason, and also because they do not distinguish between casual and heavy use.

Cellphones emit non-ionizing radiation, waves of energy that are too weak to break chemical bonds or to set off the DNA damage known to cause cancer. There is no known biological mechanism to explain how non-ionizing radiation might lead to cancer."
-----------
Studies that have shown risk have unalarming low Odds Ratios:

Meta-analysis of long-term mobile phone use and the association with brain tumours

Abstract:
We evaluated long-term use of mobile phones and the risk for brain tumours in case-control studies published so far on this issue. We identified ten studies on glioma and meta-analysis yielded OR = 0.9, 95% CI = 0.8-1.1. Latency period of ≥10-years gave OR = 1.2, 95% CI = 0.8-1.9 based on six studies, for ipsilateral use (same side as tumour) OR = 2.0, 95% CI = 1.2-3.4 (four studies), but contralateral use did not increase the risk significantly, OR = 1.1, 95% CI = 0.6-2.0. Meta-analysis of nine studies on acoustic neuroma gave OR = 0.9, 95% CI = 0.7-1.1 increasing to OR = 1.3, 95% CI = 0.6-2.8 using ≥10-years latency period (four studies). Ipsilateral use gave OR = 2.4, 95% CI = 1.1-5.3 and contra-lateral OR = 1.2, 95% CI = 0.7-2.2 in the ≥10-years latency period group (three studies). Seven studies gave results for meningioma yielding overall OR = 0.8, 95% CI = 0.7-0.99. Using ≥10-years latency period OR = 1.3, 95% CI = 0.9-1.8 was calculated (four studies) increasing to OR = 1.7, 95% CI = 0.99-3.1 for ipsilateral use and OR = 1.0, 95% CI = 0.3-3.1 for contralateral use (two studies). We conclude that this meta-analysis gave a consistent pattern of an association between mobile phone use and ipsilateral glioma and acoustic neuroma using ≥10-years latency period.
-----------------

My Conclusions:
1. Chances are there is little or no risk increase for general population, but even a small risk increase would be a big public health problem since billions of people use cell phones.
2. The lack of known biological mechanism is huge and the major reason the FDA and scientists aren't freaking out
3. Studies should be particularly concentrated on children
4. Time will tell, hopefully we can gather more evidence and not be slow to action like with tobacco (if there happens to be causational evidence).
5. If worse comes to worse, we can always go back to the Banana Phone...

Phillies Clinch NL East!

2008-09-28T23:40:00.004-04:00

My friends and I went to a classic Phillies game on Saturday, that statistics can not adequately describe. The figure above is from a cool website called fangraphs.com. It's able to track the win probability as the game goes on. It also measures the "leverage index (LI)" or importance of each at bat as the game goes along. You can notice a big dip in probability and increase in leverage with a "C Guzman Single". That single made the game 4-3 and loaded the bases with only one out. The graph can't fails to illustrate the next play which appeared to be a lead changing single, but was turned into a game ending double play.

There are also some pretty cool statistics measured on this site including WPA (Win Probablitiy Added), and Clutch.

Since I know you're interested, rankings of a few players in WPA for the 2008 season:
1. Manny Ramerez: 7.03
2. Lance Berkman: 6.68
3. Albert Pujols: 6.22
8. Carlos Beltran: 4.53
9. Joe Mauer: 4.52 (top in AL)
11. Pat Burrell: 3.78 (top for phillies)
39. Jason Giambi: 2.17 (yes he was ranked above Howard)
40. Ryan Howard: 2.17 (NL MVP or MVP of the month? - he leads in September WPA)
50. Jack Cust: 1.85 (sadly, the top athletic)
148 (last). Jeff Francoeur: -3.91

Tops in "clutch" (WPA/(LI-(WPA/LI))):
1. Stephan Drew: 2.29
2. Lance Berkman: 1.82
3. Dustin Pedroia: 1.52
8. Pat Burrell: 1.15 (top for phillies)
115. Ryan Howard: -0.76
145 (4th to last): Chase Utley: -2.11 (I don't think phillies fans noticed)
148 (last): Alex Rodriguez: -3.09 (ny fans might have been right this year?)

And FYI for pitchers WPA:

WPA: Starters

Cliff Lee	6.22
Tim Lincecum	4.73
CC Sabathia	4.69
Roy Halladay	4.48
Johan Santana	4.41

WPA: Relievers

Brad Lidge	5.43
Mariano Rivera	4.47
Joakim Soria	4.42
Joe Nathan	3.73
Carlos Marmol	3.71

(Hamels is 15th for starters)

2008 Election: State Rankings - 9/23/08

2008-09-23T19:55:00.004-04:00

(Rank, State, Score (max=1))
1. Pennsylvania - .854
2. Michigan - .775
3. Florida - .685
4. Minnesota - .675
5. Colorado - .652
6. Wisconsin - .620
7. Washington - .589
8. New Jersey - .583
9. Ohio - .576
10. Virgina -.560
-----
Just Missed: North Carolina, New Mexico, Indiana, Oregon, Nevada
(2000 Florida would rank 1st, 2004 Ohio would rank 2nd just below Pennsylvania)

See my intro - for the explanation of the question and methods for this project.
Current National Average: +3.0 for Obama
Nate Sliver's top 5 tipping point states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virgina, Colorado, and Michigan

Analysis:
The states at the top seem to be more Obama leaning states possibly because of a recent Obama bump in the national polls. It's possible that some of the state data has yet to catchup with the national data. The list is filled with larger states possibly to a fault. I'm considering changing the 50/50 designation. I'd love to hear feedback.

A couple of surprises on the list:
1. Pennsylvania - seemed to be a strong obama state, but polls have been mixed lately, very close to national average
8. New Jersey - see Pa
9 and 10. Ohio and Virgina - would expect to see these states at the top of the list. Seem to be running a few points behind national average for Obama.

2008 Election: State Rankings - Intro

2008-09-22T19:36:00.013-04:00

As we are under two months away from the Nov 4th election and a few days away from the first debate, I thought I would take a try at some statistical predictions.

Question: What state is most likely to be this years Florida (2000) or Ohio (2004)? Which one will be the "tipping point" state that decides a very close election. Several sites such as 538 have similar analyses but seem overly convoluted attempting to adjust for all confounders that are difficult to measure. I will provide a crude analysis that could be less biased than the other on the web. (I prefer the 538 one, but it is nice to having something to compare it too)

-----------
Methods:
The rankings are based off of two measures:

1. States Difference from National Average based on composites from Pollster (a popular ranking which combines all data from several pollsters - gallup, rasmussen, cnn, etc). I excluded a state more than 10 points away from national average, assuming they would not be a tipping state. We are also assuming that the election will be closely contested in terms of popular vote, or there will not be a tipping point state.

=(10-X)/10
X=State's difference from national average
*therefore a state that is exactly equal to natural average = 1*
-given .50 weight

2. # of Electoral Votes - (538 total in nation, 270 needed to be elected president)

=(State X's # of Electoral Votes)/(Largest State of Interest Electoral Votes)
*therefore Largest state in question ratio = 1*
-given .50 weight (In 2004 - New Mexico and Iowa were actually closer contested than Ohio, but did not have enough EV to "tip" the election)
-------------

Assumptions/Drawbacks:
-State data is following same trend as National data (not lagging behind)
-Confounders such as ground game, similarities to other swing states (demographics), and nation/state lag time are not involved in model
-Arbitrary weighting of state average (.5) , electoral average (.5)

Epidemiology Theories - Pre-Hopkins

2008-09-21T00:30:00.009-04:00

Theories I have one month into my Hopkins education:

1. Life expectancy in the US will decrease in the near future
-too many w/o health insurance
-expectancy (~80) all ready close to human max (~100)
-America going down the drain (stupid wars, huge debt, not funding/encouraging science)
-obesity epidemic

2. Environment is a much greater factor than Genes

-Genome Wide Association studies have shown little
-BRAC1/2 an exception, but possibly no others quite like it

-Personal genetics companies like 23 and me will lead to over analyzing of genes
-However genes play a part in basically every disease (average approx 25 percent per disease?)

3. In terms of health disparities Social Economic Status (SES) is a much greater factor than race

-Race over analyzed - possible since it's easy to measure?

-SES underdeveloped, needs a less arbitrary definition (make a uniform one?)
-However separation of groups and evolution gives more reason for race

4. Future in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and Biomarker studies
-GIS used by gov't to identify disease clusters and disparities
-Biomarkers help reduce bias, identify diseases and potential diseases at earlier stages

5. Measures will be found to greatly reduce bias
-A well done small study (w/ biomarkers) is greater than a huge sample with surveys.
-find other ways to evaluate disease without relying on human memories.
-technology will greatly help in this area - measuring risk factor/food intake via cell phones, etc

6. Obesity will not be the next smoking in this generation
-people too lazy to exercise (much harder than quitting smoking?)
-does not have the obvious ability to harm others like smoking (2nd hand)
-very difficult to turn food into something "evil" (like cigarettes)

7. Poor health education (stubbornish?) is public health biggest enemy
-public over interprets studies - we should ignore unless it increases Risk by 300 percent. Current example: BPA (poor done study showed 2x increase in heart disease, Nalgene removes it from bottles - even though FDA and well done studies are on other side).
-ignoring studies - alarming increase in vaccine distrust (people need to see a disease to be afraid?)
-huge health disparities between education classes

We'll see how my Hopkins education alters my views....

Two Point Conversions

2008-09-19T10:26:00.006-04:00

Last Sunday in the 2nd week of NFL season the Denver Broncos defeated the San Diego Chargers in an exciting 39-38 game. The Broncos make a controversial decision to go for a 2 point conversion down 38-37 with 29 seconds left, declining to take the 1 pt extra point for the tie.

Disregarding the broncos successful attempt - the question is: what was the statistically correct move?

-Most NFL fans and analysts would say the extra point - based on the fact that the broncos would tie the game and have a 50% chance of winning in overtime. This is basically the conventional wisdom. “As a general rule, I feel like I have an obligation to my team to give them a chance to win the game in overtime by kicking an extra point,” Jeff Fisher, the Tennessee Titans’ coach, said, “not by winning or losing the game on one play.”

However, the alternative (the 2 point conversion) has had a varying success rate since it's existence. This New York Times article describes this rate, including this interesting fact: "Last season, N.F.L. teams converted just 30 of 61 attempts, a paltry .492 success rate". (This rate has varied since the 2-point it's existence, but has been more successful lately possibly because of decrease incidence and better play calling). The same article mentions the success rate of an extra point is slightly below 99 percent.

Another scenario to account for is the broncos missing the 2 point conversion, kicking an onside kick (10-15 percent success rate), then scoring in the final ~30 seconds (probably a 20-30 percent assuming successful onside kick). This would indicate an additional 1-3 percent increase in the win probability for the 2-point conversion.

It is hard to take every variable to account including each player on the field, but I estimate the 2-point conversion was the correct statistical call by a very small margin. This is sometimes difficult to comprehend, Since it's a dichotomous result. Close to 50 percent of the time choosing the 2-point conversion will be fail and be the "wrong" chose.

“Sometimes you have to go with your gut,” Shanahan said. “I just felt like it was a chance for us to put them away. I didn’t want to count on the coin flip. I wanted to do it then, and obviously it worked out.”

While, I am not a fan of the phrase "going with your gut" (did his lunch make the decision?), I must commend Shannhan for taking this risk. Most coaches (like Jeff Fisher) tend toward be more conservative, choosing the statistically incorrect decision when it has high risk that could be later be blamed on the coach.

I admire Mike Shanahan for his longevity, unique use of "skill players" like running backs, and his ability to lay himself on the line by taking risky decision that is statistically accurate. Just not his post-explanations. ;)

Baseball Managers and Probability

2008-09-16T13:37:00.008-04:00

I recently got into a discussion with my friend on whether the Brewers decision of firing their manager 2 weeks before the end of the season will be beneficial for them.

Here is my commentary....

I think the effect it brings is very negligible, and is over analyzed by the media. Often, managers are fired during slumps when the team is getting unlucky and playing at a short-term record below their pyth. record based on runs scored and overall record. However, when the sample size increases they will play at a level closer to their talent level (possibly around .550 for the brewers). The brewers were "due" to lose, and they are not "due to win in the future" though. For the next two weeks, the brewers are most likely going to perform better than they have been in the previous 2 weeks. This should be based off their season's worth of data and talent level. Analysts like John Kruk and maybe even brewers players will base this off the manager change - when there really isn't much evidence pointing to that.

Lets say Carlos flips a fair coin and he gets a bunch of tails (loses) in a row. Carlos is fired and is replaced by the fresh and upcoming Ryan. Ryan flips closer to the 50/50 rate. Sports analysts would say Ryan turned things around. It's the same thing in baseball except it's not exactly 50/50, but rather maybe 55/45 for the brewers.

In my opinion the role of the baseball manager is vastly overrated. The decisions made by a manager could be made better by a computer. Players need a friend/leader to make sure they stay confident in themselves. Would hiring a psychologist or motivational speaker and using computer based analysis to make decisions be better than a "baseball guy"? Maybe...

So my prediction is that this move will "help" the brewers, but will technically bring little effect.

for further studies...
http://www.hardballtimes.com/
baseball prospectus

Edit @ 4:30pm - I know my computer manager thing isn't going to happen, but can we at least get a laptop or two in clubhouse?

What's up with the McCain Bounce?

2008-09-10T12:26:00.000-04:00

Gallup Daily tracking poll (Sept 9)

As you can see from Gallup and other polls - John McCain has been polling much better this week. The studies suggest this is because of his VP selection of Gov. Palin and the republic convention that was held last week - and may be short lived.

My problem with the polls:
There are several problems with these daily tracking and political polls in general. The fact that they are robo calling, the lack of calling cell phones, the increased use of caller ID are a few of the many. My biggest problem, however, is with the low response rate or response bias.

The goal of a poll is to try to develop a representative sample to describe the population at interest. In our case this sample of approx 1,000 being polled is supposed to represent the general US voting population. In 2004, Bush received over 62 million votes, while Kerry received over 59 - totaling well over 100 million votes. Organizations like Gallup and Rasmussen
did a good job with their statistics, determining a good sample size and all of that. The problem is their response rate. The Pew research center found that in standard surveys (like the daily tracking poll) the response rate is 27 percent. I would wager that that number is closer to 10-15 percent these days. In Epi you want to get your response rate at least in the 70 percent range.
Gallup and Rasmussen still get their adequate sample size of say 1,000 (can't find exact #) by calling closer to 5K+ homes. They are also able to adjust for confounders such as age, race, sex, etc.

So what can we take from this? Response rate is highly dependent on enthusiasm. An explanation for the McCain bounce would be that voters are more enthusiastic about his candidacy thanks to both the selection of Palin and the convention. These voters would be more willing to now answer their phone and take a few minutes out of their day to respond to the poller's questions.

For example: Lets assume Steve is a conservative leaning independent who plans to vote for McCain. Before this past week he would have maybe just ignored the poller's call, not wanting to talk politics. The poller would then go onto the next more enthusiastic caller Andrew who would answer their questions - possibly a liberal leaning independent who is very unhappy with bush. Now this week people like Steve are more willing to talk - and therefore the poller wouldn't reach people like Andrew once their sample size has become adequate. The factor has been seen in the British election and is called the Shy Tary Factor.

The democrats saw a smaller bump after the Biden announcement and their convention possibly because their base voters were all ready very enthusiastic. Also because the events all kind of overlapped in a short period of time. The real question is - would unenthusiastic Steve who will not answer the polling question still end up voting on Nov. 4th? I think most will.

The real statistic that would be most helpful to test this hypothesis is the response rate for each day of tracking and for each group - republicans, democrats, and independents.

Conclusion:
I think the bounce will eventually go down, but I don't think it matters. My advice: Ignore daily tracking polls until they discuss and alleviate some of the response bias problems.

(see 538 for Nate Silver's thoughts on the subject)

Gas Prices should be higher...

2008-09-08T08:14:00.000-04:00

A discussion on the cost of gasoline:

“This price reflects only the cost of discovering the oil, pumping it to the surface, refining it into gasoline, and delivering the gas to service stations. It overlooks the costs of climate change as well as the costs of tax subsidies to the oil industry, the bludgeoning military costs of protecting access to oil in the politically unstable Middle East, and the health care costs for treating respiratory illnesses from breathing polluted air.” (p. 7)
-Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition (Lester Brown)

Sounds about right to me....

Fantasy Football Drafting Theories

2008-09-05T11:25:00.000-04:00

Fantasy Football season is about to begin. The best part, the draft, has all ready past - so let me share with you a few of my theories based a bit on data, guts and observational study.

1. When drafting one should consider players "VORP"

-VORP - Value of Replacement Player is a statistic develop by the sabermetric community in baseball, but can be used in fantasy football quite well. When deciding between a backup qb and a fourth running back near the last rounds - one should think about who will be available on the waiver wire. If there will be several quarterbacks of equal value to the one you're considering drafting, then maybe you should go a different route.

It is important to utilize the waiver wire - and realize you do not always have to draft 2 qbs, 2 tight ends, 2 defenses, and a kicker. You can always pickup the equivalent backup later on the waiver wire.

2. Old players suck - avoid them

This study suggests that players start declining at age 28 for running back, 30 for reciever, and 32 for quarterbacks.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/articles/age.htm

There are several problems with this study:

1. It does not evaluate the percentage decrease/increase of performance

2. It evaluates all players equal - scrubs and superstars (maybe superstars - the one who matter to fantasy leagues, decline later)

3. It makes arbitrary categories on age, instead of analyzing data as continuous.

Well I take what I can get in terms of data. I'm too lazy to analyze the data myself. Either way, I am still a believer in the theory that well known, older players are going to be overvalued by the average fantasy manager.

3. Draft running backs on Good Teams

Teams that usually win are not only scoring more, but usually running out the clock in the 4th quarter - giving running backs some extra carries.

"The correlation between first quarter rushing attempts and team wins is a measly .171. That means there is almost no connection between running a lot in the first quarter, and winning a lot of games. The correlation between fourth quarter rushing attempts and team wins, on the other hand, is .750. That’s a size able relationship."

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2003/07/14/ramblings/stat-analysis/3/

4. Draft receivers on Bad Teams, with decent QBs

The converse of this - when teams are playing from behind they have to throw more giving better stats to the receivers.

5. Draft many more running backs and wide receivers

In a typical league you will start 2 or 3 Running Backs and Wide outs, while only starting 1 QB, TE, and Def. There are over 30 starters for each position

6. Concentrate on Yards instead of TDs

Especially for Running Backs - TDs are a lot of luck. Look at Willie Parker last year who only had 2 TDs despite being one of the leading rushers. The previous year he had 16 TDs with a similar yardage amount. Yards gained are going to be a lot more constant (less variable) than TDs, with TD vultures, etc.

7. Don't over think things

There is a lot of variability and luck in fantasy football. You cannot really control injuries for the most part, and predicting results on a week to week basis is little better than a crap shoot. Players come out of nowhere each year like Derek Anderson, Jason Witten, and Ryan Grant last year. Solid producers like Shaun Alexander, Preist Holmes and Marvin Harrison can drop off a cliff any given year. Just pick some guys you think should do well loosely based on statistics and the other above measures, then pick some guys you enjoy rooting for.

8. Finally, actually show up to the draft!

I actually missed my keeper league draft this year, and got screwed. Yahoo decided I needed 10 backup QBs like Charlie Batch. So i'll be working the waivers heavily this year.

Haiti and Hurricanes

2008-09-04T07:55:00.000-04:00

I am big supporter of Partners in Health (PIH) run by Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl and others. Their organization helped argue that you can successfully treat those in developing countries like Haiti (the poorest country in the western hemisphere), the same way as in the United States. They treat disease that were usually considered 'too expensive' like TB-MDR and HIV-AIDS.

I have traveled to Haiti and it's neighbor the Dominican Republic several times over the past few years with a solidarity group. Following the Haiti's news over the past few years, I've realized their problems are bit more complicated than it seems on the surface.

One of their major problems is their location - specifically a prime target to be hit by Hurricanes. Similar to places like Florida, New Orleans, and Cuba, each fall they seem to be devastated by one hurricane after another.

Today I received an email from PIH discussing Haiti's recent blows from Hurricanes Gustav and Hanna.

"Loune Viaud, our Director of Operations in Haiti, explained that the situation is dire and the suffering extreme. She estimates that close to 10,000 people have been driven from their homes by floodwaters in Haiti’s Artibonite Valley, where we have recently expanded our operations to six new facilities."

"The situation is dire and catastrophic and sad and frustrating... worse than [Hurricane] Jeanne, if you can imagine." - Loune Viaud, Director of Operations for Zanmi Lasante

Hurricanes that hit Haiti can be especially deadly because of the lack of forestation in the country. Haiti was once a lush wonderland where Christopher Columbus first landed in the new world. Now thanks to years of poverty, political corruption, and mass deforestation to produce charcoal for food - the place seems almost bare. The lack of trees are a major problem because it the hurricanes can more easily create problems via floods and mudslides. Haiti's high population density (249.79 people per sqkm[45th of 256 countries]) helps compound the effect.

I don't have too much data on the situation - but I feel the hurricanes have shown an argument for helping to solve Haiti's environmental problem before their many others. How this can be done is another question...

Adolescent Sexual Health

2008-09-01T15:53:00.000-04:00

John McCain's Vice President pick of Sara Palin has brought the issue of sex education back to the mainstream media. Due to her outside the mainstream stance on the issue, and her teenage daughter recent admittance of being pregnant.

Nate Silver from Fivethirtyeight.com:

The Issue: Sex Education Palin’s Position: Would replace sex-ed programs with abstinence-only programs (source).

America’s Position: A broad consensus around the teaching of sex education has existed for decades, with 85 percent of Americans favoring sex-ed in schools as early as 1985 (source). The numbers appear to have increased since, as a 2004 poll conducted by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Kennedy School of Government showed that 90 percent of Americans believe that sex education is a “very important” or “somewhat important” part of the school curriculum, whereas only 7 percent believe that sex education should not be taught at all. In the same survey, just 15 percent of Americans supported abstinence-only programs (source).

Conclusion: Palin’s position is far outside of the mainstream.

-------

I want to try to stay away from personal politics though. Palin's daughter's situation will be sure to get too much media play, when it really has no relevance on the general public. Remember Obama's mother had Barack at age 18. The issue at hand is: Does the US have successful sexual education in terms of pregnancy and STIs.

Advocates for Youth site statistics from the late 90s:

(the following points were from respected journals complied by the Guttmacher Institute)

• Between 1995 and 2002, the number of teens aged 15–17 who had ever engaged in sexual intercourse declined 10%.[2]
• Of the approximately 750,000 teen pregnancies that occur each year, 82% are unintended. More than one-quarter end in abortion. [3]
• The pregnancy rate among U.S. women aged 15–19 has declined steadily—from 117 pregnancies per 1,000 women in 1990 to 75 per 1,000 women in 2002.[4]

• Approximately 14% of the decline in teen pregnancy between 1995 and 2002 was due to teens’ delaying sex or having sex less often, while 86% was due to an increase in sexually experienced teens’ contraceptive use.[5]
• Despite years of evaluation in this area, there is no evidence to date that abstinence-only education delays teen sexual activity. Moreover, recent research shows that abstinence-only strategies may deter contraceptive use among sexually active teens, increasing their risk of unintended pregnancy and STIs.[30]

So the conclusion I have come to is that we are seeing some nice declines, but we have a ways to go to catch up with other countries. There are a ton of statistics we can analyze on this one but there isn't much debate on this issue in the medical community:

Proponents of comprehensive sex education, which include the American Psychological Association,[23] the American Medical Association,[24] the National Association of School Psychologists,[25] the American Academy of Pediatrics,[26] the American Public Health Association,[27] the Society for Adolescent Medicine[28] and the American College Health Association,[28] argue that sexual behavior after puberty is a given, and it is therefore crucial to provide information about the risks and how they can be minimized; they also claim that denying teens such factual information leads to unwanted pregnancies and STIs.

The point is we are biologically wired to want to have sex after puberty - Darwian evolution support this. It is biologically natural, it is just not socially natural. It's just sad that comprehensive sex education is an issue in this country.

*UPDATE* - USA Today had an article this week about the same topic i have this nice chart on the small uptick of teen pregnancy. (See figure at top of page)

*UPDATE 2* NY Times Op-Ed piece chimes in. 'There are 400,000 other unwed teenage mothers in the U.S. right now, the highest per capita rate among developed countries.'

Obesity

2008-08-29T23:19:00.000-04:00

-A recent study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reminded me of our obesity problem:
New Report: Adult Obesity Rates Rise in 37 States, Obesity Rates Now Exceed 25 Percent in More Than Half of States

"In 1991, no state had an obesity rate above 20 percent. In 1980, the national average of obese adults was 15 percent. Now, an estimated two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese"

The CDC has some striking maps on the epidemic. Following them for the past twenty years can be very convincing that we have a serious problem on our hand.:

Video of the change in US Obesity from 1985-2007

BMI vs. Other Measures
-The most common measure of obesity - BMI (Body Mass Index - weight in kg/height in meters) is a bit flawed. It does not distinguish between muscle and fat. Those that are extremely buff are likely to be considered overweight or obese by this scale. Researchers also consider waist to hip ratios and body fat percentage when analyzing weight. However these two measure are much more difficult to gather on a population level.

Should one consider herself overweight or obese if their BMI is over 25 or 30? I think you should consider your body fat percentage (should be less than 15% for men, less than 25% for women) and waist to hip ratio before drawing that conclusion. That being said the data from all three of these measures show a very dramatic incline.

Genetic Link?
Adoption studies provide insight on if the problem is due to the environment or genetics. While seeing how quickly these inclines have increased, environment must have a rather important role on the subject. However adoption studies show that adoptees weight are more highly correlated to their biological parents weight than adoptive parents weight - giving argument that obesity can be considered somewhat genetic.

Another argument for the genetic cause of obesity is the country of nauru. Nauru is a pacific island that currently tops in obesity at 94.5% of their adult population. Their story is rather interesting. In World War 2 they were deported from their country by the Japanese to a small food lacking island in micronesia. During that time a considerable portion starved to death (approx one third). After returning back to their country, the survivors lifestyle changed after gaining wealth and becoming much more sedentary. This can be considered a human experiment for the genetic link to obesity. The survivors from micronesia were the ones who had a better propensity to store food, but also the ones who can become more obese.

Should insurance companies increase premiums for the obese?
Health insurance should consider obesity when determining rate, but instead of punishing those who are obese they should reward those who are being active. If people got rebates for losing weight, that would be a little extra motivation. However it is more difficult to discriminate when the problem is partially genetic.

Should the government subsidize healthier food so it can be bought by the poor?
While healthier food such as fruit, vegetables and fish are pretty expensive - I don't know if subsidizing them will attract too many more poor customers. Our income inequalities in this country are problematic to say the least, and there isn't any easy solution to this problem. My current thought is to tax foods with high percentage of trans and saturated fats, sort of like what is currently done with cigarettes.

Data Driven Decision: Mission Statement

2008-08-29T22:26:00.000-04:00

Mission Statement:
To increase the influence of data, and correctly interpreted conclusions.

Examples in the sports, politics, finance, and health arenas will be discussed. Conclusions will be analyzed - particularly misinterpretations. The final goal will be to answer the question: How can we present data clearer so the general public can make more informed decisions?