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
14
Who are “health conscious” and how do we measure it?
One of my more recent reads was John Rossiter’s Measurement for the Social Sciences, The C-OAR-SE Method and Why It Must Replace Psychometrics (Springer 2011). Rossiter is an Australian professor in the Institute for Innovation in Business and Social Research and likes to portray himself as a rebel with a cause. His book is worth … 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 »
May
03
I have groups – but are they the right groups? Validating clusters
In research, validity refers to the accuracy of your observations or solution. Validity can be divided into different types (content, face and quantitative) but that’s probably another discussion. Rather, in followup to my last blog, I wanted to give you an overview of how groupings created by clustering procedures can be validated. My source is … Continue reading »
Apr
26
We could all use a little quirkology
During my last trip to England, I picked up Quirkology, The Curious Science of Everyday Lives by Richard Wiseman (Pan Books, 2007). Wiseman is described as a professor of Public Understanding of Psychology and is based at the University of Hertfordshire. His book looks both at scientific investigations into offbeat subjects as well as investigations … Continue reading »
Apr
21
Is being overweight a death sentence?
A December, 2010, publication in the NEJM on all-cause mortality and weight has attracted a fair bit of media attention.(1) Most of the media pickup has interpreted the study to say that being overweight increases your risk of dying. But how great a risk? Ah, there’s the rub. Here’s a table derived from the article … Continue reading »
Feb
16
Is taxing sugar-sweetened drinks the solution to our obesity dilemma?
In late 2010, there was a fair amount of media pick-up of a study claiming that a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks could reduce people’s caloric intake and lead to a weight loss of ten pounds over ten years. Sounds great and isn’t the first time this sort of modeling has been performed – Kelly Brownell … Continue reading »
Feb
04
What is meant by ‘significant’?
If you read reports of research studies, you’ll typically see words to the effect that “the treatment was statistically significant” or “a significant number of respondents reported they did not believe politicians.” What are the authors trying to tell you? To begin with, you need to tease out how the word significant is being used. … Continue reading »