September 25, 2014

Asthma and job security

The Herald’s story is basically fine

People concerned that they may lose their jobs are more likely to develop asthma than those in secure employment, a new study suggests.

Those who had “high job insecurity” had a 60 per cent increased risk of developing asthma when compared to those who reported no or low fears about their employment, they found.

though it would be nice to have the absolute risks (1.3% vs 2.1% over two years) , and the story is really short on identifying information about the researchers, only giving the countries they work in (the paper is here).

The main reason to mention it is to link to the NHS “Behind the Headlines” site, which writes about stories like this one in the British Media (the Independent, in this case).

Also, the journal should be complimented for having the press release linked from the same web page as the abstract and research paper. It would be even better, as Ben Goldacre has suggested, to have authors listed for the press release, but this is at least a step in the direction of accountability.

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Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »