Psychiatric genetics is an emerging and important area of research. As its name implies, it’s the study of how genetics contribute to psychiatric issues such as schizophrenia, autism, ADHD and depression. Not that it’s a simple relationship. For example, studies on twins in Swedenhave shown that genetics explain about 40% of a woman’s risk of … Continue reading »
Aug
02
Can RCTs be used to evaluate websites?
In the world of medical and health research, the “gold standard” of proof is the randomized controlled trial (RCT). The heart of the RCT is that it’s a trial or study that: compares a control group — a group that gets a placebo or existing standard intervention — to an experimental group that gets the … Continue reading »
Jul
19
Do medical centres exaggerate research findings?
Press releases increase the chances that findings from a research study will be picked up by the media. In fact, a 2008 study found that about a third of American health news stories rely solely or largely on press releases.(1) There’s a tendency for press releases from pharmaceutical companies and medical journal to overstate the … Continue reading »
Jul
10
When health promotion claims are exaggerated: risk factor x causes y number of deaths
On WebMD you can find the following statements: about 20% of all deaths from heart disease in the US are related to smoking 35,000 nonsmokers will die from heart disease each year as a result of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. This example cites smoking stats but similar claims have been made for other risk … Continue reading »
Jul
03
Making assumptions about depression in heart disease and seniors
It’s been estimated that about a third of patients with heart failure are depressed or at least have depressive symptoms. Of course, you could argue that it’s surprising the proportion isn’t greater: heart failure is a miserable disease with symptoms as bad as, and a mortality rate worse than, many forms of cancer. With this … Continue reading »
Jun
25
Manipulating polling results: aided vs. unaided awareness
A recent media release by the Heart and Stroke Foundation reported “only 28% [of Canadian women] recognized high blood pressure as a risk factor” for stroke. This sort of stat is also a nice illustration of an important issue when you’re doing public opinion polling: whether you use aided or unaided awareness. Aided awareness is … Continue reading »
Jun
21
How reliable are news reports of research findings?
An increasing number of studies have shown what many previously suspected: news reports of research findings or medical developments are heavily dependent upon the information contained in media releases. Some of these media releases are written by journal editors or university or hospital PR departments, but others may be written by pharmaceutical companies. In fact, … Continue reading »
Jun
18
When health promotion claims are exaggerated: preventing death
Recently, I saw a claim that “80% of deaths due to heart disease can be prevented by changing behaviour.” Yikes, that’s just so …. wrong. To be fair, I don’t think people or organizations that make such claims are being deliberately misleading. Claims like this are more a matter of fuzzy logic. Okay, let’s start … Continue reading »
Jun
11
Is “learning style” an example of junk science?
OK, it’s a bit dorky but one of my favourite books has the unwieldy name of 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology, Shattering Widespread Misconceptions About Human Behavior (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). The book is written by four established professors of psychology; four in the US (Scott Lilienfeld at Emory, Steven Lynn at the State University of … Continue reading »
May
09
Chemophobia – let’s get real!
A news release claiming that a link had been found between diet soda consumption and stroke got me thinking about the widespread existence of chemophobia – the irrational fear of “chemicals.” Part of the problem lies in the fact that there seems to be the assumption that naturally-occurring chemical are all good while manufactured chemicals … Continue reading »