Don’t Have Your Operation On A Friday
This report on the BBC, about research by Paul Aylin at Imperial College, says that you are more likely to die, if you have your operation towards the end of the week.
Some years ago, my software Daisy, was used to examine the outcomes of surgery in a Regional Health Authority. They found, that the longer a patient was in hospital, the more likely there would be complications.
This data needs a lot more analysis.
Deaths From Asthma
The previous post on asthma got me thinking, so I looked up if there was a site, that gave asthma deaths by country.
There is and it’s here.
The site is interesting , as it gives an awful lot of ways you can die. just select and click go.
For example, one of the sections is falling from trees. No-one actually died that way in the statistics they show.
The Solo Die Young
This is some interesting research as reported on the BBC.
Apparently, solo artists seem to die younger than those in groups.
A Good Reason For All Types Of Marriage
I did a trawl of the Internet and found this article about William Farr in the New York Times.
He was one of the founders of medical statistics and to quote his Wikipedia bio.
In 1858, he performed a study on the correlation of health and marriage condition, and found that health decreases from the married to the unmarried to the widowed.
The only problem with the study is that it was done 154 years ago. But if he got his statistics right, I suspect his results still hold.
I’m surprised that no-one has invoked William Farr in the argument on gay marriage. After all, the longer we live healthy lives can only be to the good of everybody in the population.
Will I Live Longer Than My Cat?
This question has been posed by the wonderfully-named Professor David Spiegelhalter on the BBC’s web site.
I certainly will, as I don’t have a cat! But if I acquired a cat, would that lengthen my life? On the other hand, all the cats, that I’ve previously owned have been rather clever in finding veterinarily expensive ways of killing themselves at quite a young age.
Those Exam Results
Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times says what all of us have been thinking about the GCSE results. They can’t go on rising without any visible means of support for ever.
After all teachers like results to improve as it makes them look good and if they get worse, then teachers look bad. It is better that kids find out they’re not the new Jane Austen or Stephen Hawkins at school, where hopefully teachers can do something about it.
It probably why understanding of statistics is so bad in this country, the first set they come across are massaged in their and their teachers favour.
Everybody Wants a Corgi
And not just any corgi, but a Pembrokeshire, like the Queen.
This is a statistic from the Kennel Club and it’s probably all down to the Diamond Jubilee.
The Statistics Are Starting To Be Published
This page from the BBC shows how statistics are starting to yield answers.
Let’s hope they analyse them in detail and publish both the data and all the results. I doubt that we’ll see them as an Excel spreadsheet. I would love to analyse that with Daisy.
This Guy Has a Big Job On
David Spiegelhalter is the Professor of Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge. He has written a very good article on the subject of risk with respect to insurance in today’s Times.
So he has a big job on to knock sense into politicians, lawyers, insurance companies and the general public.
But it will make little difference, as we are the most statistically-untrained generation for perhaps a thousand years.
By the way his superb name is literally translated as mirror owner.
The Anonymous Widower 