Data Overload - Making Sense of Statistics in the News, Kristin Sainani

This webinar uses examples from news coverage to explain how to interpret risk and probability, identify misleading quantitative claims, understand correlation, and recognize confounding. It includes simulations of polling errors and examples from medical research.

Syllabus

Introduction.
Three statistics lessons from the news.
Statements made.
The numbers: relative risk (risk ratio).
The numbers: absolute risk difference.
Relative vs. Absolute Risk.
Communicating relative risks correctly.
Relative risks don't tell the whole story.
Niskanen Center Methodology.
Implement in a simulation.
But this approach has a problem!.
Correlated errors in the 2016 election.
Redo the simulation focused on polling errors, uncorrelated.
Then make the polling errors correlated.
Reaching for biological explanations....
Factors that affect vitamin D levels.
Factors that affect vo, max.
The problem of unmeasured and residual confounding.
Further resources.
Medical Statistics Certificate Program.