Chance News 55: Difference between revisions
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Contributed by Paul Alper | Contributed by Paul Alper | ||
Revision as of 14:33, 13 September 2009
Quotations
Forsooths
Responding to a Canadian viewer who pointed out that "life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA," Fox's Bill O'Reilly on 7/27/09 said,
Well, that's to be expected, Peter, because we have 10 times as many people as you do. That translates to 10 times as many accidents, crimes, down the line.
Breaking News
The Wall Street Journal of September 8, 2009 reports on a study in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery: “The researchers compared the outcomes of patients who underwent surgery between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. for fractures of the femur or tibia to those who had comparable surgeries for similar fractures outside those normal hours.”
| Sample | Reoperations Needed |
Sample Size |
Sample Proportion |
|
| Outside Normal Hours | 28 |
82 |
.3415 | |
| Within Normal Hours | 12 |
70 |
.1714 |
The results are:
Difference = p (1) - p (2) Estimate for difference: 0.170035 95% CI for difference: (0.0346494, 0.305420) Test for difference = 0 (vs not = 0): Z = 2.37 P-Value = 0.018
Fisher's exact test: P-Value = 0.026
Discussion
1. Why is the Fisher exact test P-Value (0.026) to be preferred to the other P-Value mentioned (0.018)?
2. The Wall Street Journal mentioned several caveats “making it difficult to determine the underlying reasons for the after-hours patients’ poor outcomes.” List a few practical significance hedges to the statistically significant result.
Contributed by Paul Alper