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Death certificates
Posted in
confounding,
death certificates
At the Pump Handle today, revere posts a brief overview of death certificates and their use in research, also with a nice discussion of age-adjusted death rates that fits in nicely with this week's post here on the confounding issue.
RADON GAS AND LUNG CANCER WARNING
I knew someone who never smoked and was very health concsious who died of lung cancer. She did everything right and yet succumbed to it anyway. Could this have been a case of radon caused lung cancer? It is only a guess, but it is a surity that testing for radon is worthwhile and not that expensive.
"Radon, concentrated in poorly ventilated basements, might not be a concern for the few minutes that one is doing laundry or other chores, but it becomes a cancer risk after eight-hour days in a basement office. Radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer, claiming 21,000 lives each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency."
Many homes with cellers and basements may be subject to radon gas emissions and you would never suspect. It is estimated that some 20,000 people may die every year of radon related illness, especially lung cancer. Better safe than sorry.
“Exposure to Radon Causes Lung Cancer In Non-smokers and Smokers Alike" EPA
What about radon in granite counter tops? Learn more
Lung cancer kills thousands of Americans every year. The untimely deaths of Peter Jennings and Dana Reeve have raised public awareness about lung cancer, especially among people who have never smoked. Smoking, radon, and secondhand smoke are the leading causes of lung cancer. Although lung cancer can be treated, the survival rate is one of the lowest for those with cancer. From the time of diagnosis, between 11 and 15 percent of those afflicted will live beyond five years, depending upon demographic factors. In many cases lung cancer can be prevented; this is especially true for radon.
Learn more about radon health risks “
Some answers to how you can protect against radon are at this and these other links.
http://www.epa.gov/radon/
http://aarst.org/
http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/your-granite-countertops-could-be-killing-you-66749.aspx
For some general protection from all forms of radiation check:
http://www.rifeenergymedicine.com/Radiationprotection.html
RADON GAS AND LUNG CANCER WARNING
I knew someone who never smoked and was very health concsious who died of lung cancer. She did everything right and yet succumbed to it anyway. Could this have been a case of radon caused lung cancer? It is only a guess, but it is a surity that testing for radon is worthwhile and not that expensive.
"Radon, concentrated in poorly ventilated basements, might not be a concern for the few minutes that one is doing laundry or other chores, but it becomes a cancer risk after eight-hour days in a basement office. Radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer, claiming 21,000 lives each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency."
Many homes with cellers and basements may be subject to radon gas emissions and you would never suspect. It is estimated that some 20,000 people may die every year of radon related illness, especially lung cancer. Better safe than sorry.
“Exposure to Radon Causes Lung Cancer In Non-smokers and Smokers Alike" EPA
What about radon in granite counter tops? Learn more
Lung cancer kills thousands of Americans every year. The untimely deaths of Peter Jennings and Dana Reeve have raised public awareness about lung cancer, especially among people who have never smoked. Smoking, radon, and secondhand smoke are the leading causes of lung cancer. Although lung cancer can be treated, the survival rate is one of the lowest for those with cancer. From the time of diagnosis, between 11 and 15 percent of those afflicted will live beyond five years, depending upon demographic factors. In many cases lung cancer can be prevented; this is especially true for radon.
Learn more about radon health risks “
Some answers to how you can protect against radon are at this and these other links.
http://www.epa.gov/radon/
http://aarst.org/
http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/your-granite-countertops-could-be-killing-you-66749.aspx
For some general protection from all forms of radiation check:
http://www.rifeenergymedicine.com/Radiationprotection.html
RADON GAS AND LUNG CANCER WARNING
I knew someone who never smoked and was very health concsious who died of lung cancer. She did everything right and yet succumbed to it anyway. Could this have been a case of radon caused lung cancer? It is only a guess, but it is a surity that testing for radon is worthwhile and not that expensive.
"Radon, concentrated in poorly ventilated basements, might not be a concern for the few minutes that one is doing laundry or other chores, but it becomes a cancer risk after eight-hour days in a basement office. Radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer, claiming 21,000 lives each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency."
Many homes with cellers and basements may be subject to radon gas emissions and you would never suspect. It is estimated that some 20,000 people may die every year of radon related illness, especially lung cancer. Better safe than sorry.
“Exposure to Radon Causes Lung Cancer In Non-smokers and Smokers Alike" EPA
What about radon in granite counter tops? Learn more
Lung cancer kills thousands of Americans every year. The untimely deaths of Peter Jennings and Dana Reeve have raised public awareness about lung cancer, especially among people who have never smoked. Smoking, radon, and secondhand smoke are the leading causes of lung cancer. Although lung cancer can be treated, the survival rate is one of the lowest for those with cancer. From the time of diagnosis, between 11 and 15 percent of those afflicted will live beyond five years, depending upon demographic factors. In many cases lung cancer can be prevented; this is especially true for radon.
Learn more about radon health risks “
Some answers to how you can protect against radon are at this and these other links.
http://www.epa.gov/radon/
http://aarst.org/
http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/your-granite-countertops-could-be-killing-you-66749.aspx
For some general protection from all forms of radiation check:
http://www.rifeenergymedicine.com/Radiationprotection.html
Confounding
Posted in
confounding
Confounding is a concept often mentioned in clinical research - the idea that a 3rd variable can distort or confuse (or confound..) a relationship between two other variables.
When confounding is present, it looks like exposure A is associated with increased risk of disease B, but really a 3rd variable X is causing increased risk of disease B and it just happens to also be associated with exposure A.
Clear as mud? Here's a real world example - if you look at how people recover after hip fracture, and you consider gender and whether women or men do better after hip fracture, it may seem that women generally fare poorly after they break a hip.
However, there's a confounder in this relationship -- age!
If you think a little more about the characteristics of people who break a hip, you realize that young men have hip fractures (due to high-energy trauma associated with events like motor vehicle crashes) and old(er) women have hip fractures (women with reduced bone density and potentially some mobility/balance/cognition problems leading to a fall). Younger females don't tend to have as many hip fractures as their young male counterparts (due to lifestyle issues etc.), and older males don't tend to have the same incidence of hip fracture as their female counterparts (they don't always have the same severity of bone density changes as older females; men tend to die sooner).
The female group is then naturally weighted toward older people (who generally heal more slowly and may have other comorbid conditions going on) and the male group is weighted toward young, otherwise healthy people.
So, when you add age to the statistical model and correct for the different age distribution, the difference in outcome by gender goes away -- the women tend to do more poorly because they're older, not because of their gender. If you control for age, there's no difference in outcome between men and women.
This is a classic example of confounding and one way to correct for it -- in an observational study, you can't randomize, but you can try to measure "things" that might be impacting your disease -- age, gender, socioeconomic status, family support, severity of injury, type of operative repair, rehabilitation status, etc. -- so that you can add them into your statistical model.
The Pitt epidemiology supercourse has a great discussion of confounding and ways to correct for it (PowerPoint file), and the Social Sciences Statistics blog has a very interesting post today that comments on issues of confounding in a recent study about running habits in older individuals (this is the study the post talks about).
When confounding is present, it looks like exposure A is associated with increased risk of disease B, but really a 3rd variable X is causing increased risk of disease B and it just happens to also be associated with exposure A.
Clear as mud? Here's a real world example - if you look at how people recover after hip fracture, and you consider gender and whether women or men do better after hip fracture, it may seem that women generally fare poorly after they break a hip.
However, there's a confounder in this relationship -- age!
If you think a little more about the characteristics of people who break a hip, you realize that young men have hip fractures (due to high-energy trauma associated with events like motor vehicle crashes) and old(er) women have hip fractures (women with reduced bone density and potentially some mobility/balance/cognition problems leading to a fall). Younger females don't tend to have as many hip fractures as their young male counterparts (due to lifestyle issues etc.), and older males don't tend to have the same incidence of hip fracture as their female counterparts (they don't always have the same severity of bone density changes as older females; men tend to die sooner).
The female group is then naturally weighted toward older people (who generally heal more slowly and may have other comorbid conditions going on) and the male group is weighted toward young, otherwise healthy people.
So, when you add age to the statistical model and correct for the different age distribution, the difference in outcome by gender goes away -- the women tend to do more poorly because they're older, not because of their gender. If you control for age, there's no difference in outcome between men and women.
This is a classic example of confounding and one way to correct for it -- in an observational study, you can't randomize, but you can try to measure "things" that might be impacting your disease -- age, gender, socioeconomic status, family support, severity of injury, type of operative repair, rehabilitation status, etc. -- so that you can add them into your statistical model.
The Pitt epidemiology supercourse has a great discussion of confounding and ways to correct for it (PowerPoint file), and the Social Sciences Statistics blog has a very interesting post today that comments on issues of confounding in a recent study about running habits in older individuals (this is the study the post talks about).
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