Photo: Pewari via Flickr
I’ve discussed in previous blog posts ways in which confounding by indication can completely change the way observational research is interpreted: it can flip common wisdom about labor induction and cesarean delivery risk on its head, and it can lead to bizarre conversations illustrating a researchers’ blind spots when it comes to discussing topics like depression and hormonal birth control. Continue reading
Outside, there is still a chill in the air and I have recent memories of several inches of snow on the ground. Inside, I’m reading about sweltering summer heat and its effect on respiratory hospitalizations.
Specifically, the largest epidemiological study of its kind – 12.5 million Medicare beneficiaries in 213 U.S. urban counties with at least 30 percent of their population 65 or older. “Heat-related emergency hospitalizations for respiratory diseases in the Medicare population” (Anderson, et. al) was published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health investigated the connection between heat and emergency respiratory hospitalizations, which was less clear than that heat-related mortality in the elderly. Continue reading