This is known as the misuse of statistics. It is often assumed that the misuse of statistics is limited to those individuals or companies seeking to gain profit from distorting the truth, be it economics, education, or mass media. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic misinformation has caused people to decline COVID-19 vaccines, reject public health measures such as masking and physical distancing, and use unproven treatments. From there naturally stems the question: who paid them? The cases start growing rapidly, but since March 26, the growth seems to slow down and come closer to the top of the curve. Any sensible person would easily identify the fact that car accidents do not cause bear attacks. In this article, we showcase examples of how data related to the COVID-19 pandemic has been (mis)represented in the media and by governmental agencies and discuss plausible reasons why it has been (mis)represented. Ask a credible source, such as a doctor or nurse, if they have additional information. However, more often than not, data dredging is used to assume the existence of relationships without further study. For these reasons, a firm understanding of data science is an essential skill for professionals. This can lead to poor decision-making due to misinformation. Carefully review information in preprints. Lets put this into perspective with an example of the misuse of statistics in advertising. There is also the broader context here, which is counties with mask mandates are oftentimes counties that are more densely populated and are seeing larger numbers of cases prompting them to take action. Although in 2007 the company was forced to pay a $600 million fine for its criminal actions, the consequences of this are still seen to date. Example 8: Urban Planning. With the rise of advanced technology and globalized operations, statistical analyses grant businesses insight into solving the extreme uncertainties of the market. On top of that, the numbers can be hard to interpret, whether that's a . Rather its politicians trying to make a point for their own interest or just someone not understanding the information behind the graphs and charts they create, crime statistics are not free of being misleading. Independent university study group, lab-affiliated research team, consulting company? This graph makes the argument that masks help "flatten the curve" (or lower the rate of growth of COVID-19 cases) by pointing out that countries with mask usage had lower growth rates than countries without mask usage. Increase investment in research on misinformation. Convene federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, private, nonprofit, and research partners to explore the impact of health misinformation and establish best practices for prevention. During the initial stages of COVID, the general public was forced to consume scientific information in the form of data visualizations to stay informed about the current developments of the virus. Do numbers lie? Making the difference between the two publications a lot bigger than what it actually is, which is just 10%. Citation2020), this very truth has now been laid bare for the world to see in the media and social media as the general public grapples with making, and making sense of, data-based arguments around COVID-19. A controversial representation of this happened in 2014 when a graph depicting the number of murders committed using firearms in Florida from 1990 to 2010 was published in the context of the Stand Your Ground law, enacted in 2005 to give people the right to use deadly force for self-defense. There is also no evidence to say that the Florida Law Enforcement Department was purposely deceiving the public. These false correlations often leave the general public very confused and searching for answers regarding the significance of causation and correlation. An official website of the United States government. While initially, the trend was going towards choosing option A, when grouping surviving patients considering other variables the trend changed to option B. Actually, there is no problem per se but there can be. Amongst various videos of success cases of patients, merchandising, and unethical messaging included in Purdues marketing strategy to advertise OxyContin as a safe drug, there was a very interesting graph, used to prove to doctors that the drug was non-addictive because it stayed on the patients blood over time avoiding symptoms of withdrawal. What would your conclusion be about the importance of a mask mandate? Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? Health misinformation has also led to harassment and violence against health workers, airline staff, and other frontline workers tasked with communicating evolving public health measures. And over the years, tobacco. By Bernardita Calzon in Data Analysis, Jan 6th 2023, 3) Misleading Statistics Examples In Real Life. Secure .gov websites use HTTPSA lock ( It also happens to be a topic that is vigorously endorsed by both opponents and proponents via studies. What if the measured variables were different? If the sample size of the study is too small to prove its conclusion then you should be responsible enough and not use these results as an absolute truth as this paves the way for future misinformation. This is not to say that there is no proper use of data mining, as it can in fact lead to surprise outliers and interesting analyses. In 2006, The Times, a popular UK newspaper, printed a story about how they were the leading paper both online and in print in the UK. However, when you look at a longer time period such as 1910 to 2015 (image below) we realize that the debt is actually very low comparing it to other years. Whether this person notices or not, they might be providing an inaccurate or manipulated picture to confirm a specific conclusion. This example of a misleading use of statistics is perhaps one of the more clear cases of intent to mislead, despite attempts of the administration to make it appear accidentalsee May 19 story about the response in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Mariano and Trubey 2020 ). Well, a Simpsons Paradox can happen when an analyst doesnt look at the complete scope of the data. Statistical analyses have historically been a stalwart of the high-tech and advanced business industries, and today they are more important than ever. Studies foster informed decision-making, sound judgments, and actions carried out on the weight of evidence, not assumptions. These are examples of loaded questions., A more accurate way of wording the question would be, Do you support government assistance programs for unemployment? or, (even more neutrally) What is your point of view regarding unemployment assistance?, The latter two examples of the original questions eliminate any inference or suggestion from the poller, and thus, are significantly more impartial. This means that there is no definable justification for the placement of the visible measurement lines. Purposely or not, the time periods we choose to portray will affect the way viewers perceive the data. No, of course, its a made-up number (even though such a study would be interesting to know but again, could have all the flaws it tries at the same time to point out). For instance, showing a value for 3 months can show radically different trends than showing it over a year. Fig. In the field of healthcare, statistics is important for the following reasons: Reason 1: Statistics allows healthcare professionals to monitor the health of individuals using descriptive statistics.. Reason 2: Statistics allows healthcare professionals to quantify the relationship between . This video can be used for educational and training purposes. Disinformation is when misinformation is used to serve a malicious purpose, such as to trick people into believing something for financial gain or political advantage. Evaluate the effectiveness of internal policies and practices in addressing misinformation and be transparent with findings. Survival Rates in Cancer Survival rates are often used as a measure of cancer treatment success. The intent is to convey a shift in focus from cancer screenings to abortion. Scientists! Some useful questions to ask could be: What purpose might the Georgia Department of Public Health have had in manipulating the plot in this way? Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. Drinking tea increases diabetes by 50%, and baldness raises the cardiovascular disease risk up to 70%! In this case, there is no way to know if the data were purposefully (mis)represented to support a particular message, or if it were (mis)represented by accident. Omitting the baseline. Consider the following steps to determine if information is accurate: For more information on common types of health misinformation sources, check out our Health Misinformation Community Toolkit. Providing solely the percentage of change without the total numbers or sample size will be totally misleading. Engage with your friends and family on the problem of health misinformation. 19 of the persons respond yes to the survey. To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System The ASA continued, Because we understood that another competitors brand was recommended almost as much as the Colgate brand by the dentists surveyed, we concluded that the claim misleadingly implied 80 percent of dentists recommend Colgate toothpaste in preference to all other brands. The ASA also claimed that the scripts used for the survey informed the participants that the study was being performed by an independent research company, which was inherently false. They can lead to misleading statistics that give you a faulty idea of customer satisfaction and product preferences. Source #1: A small sample size. This rare disease causes the spine of a baby to form improperly and can lead to serious mobility impairments and possible organ malfunctions. (Citation2012) titled Case Studies for Quantitative Reasoning: A Casebook of Media Articles. Moreover, we believe these kinds of examples are useful in expanding the toolkit of resources available that are in line with other similar resources, such as the book published by Madison etal. For example, are visualizations representing the data accurately? 3099067 Another way of creating misleading statistics, also linked with the choice of sample discussed above, is the size of said sample. As businesses are often forced to follow a difficult-to-interpret product roadmap, statistical methods can help with the planning that is necessary to navigate a landscape filled with potholes, pitfalls . Based on the structure of the chart, it does in fact appear to show that the number of abortions since 2006 experienced substantial growth, while the number of cancer screenings substantially decreased. This is a clear situation in which the axes are manipulated to show a specific result that is misleading. These are important questions to ponder and answer before spreading everywhere skewed or biased results even though it happens all the time, because of amplification. Why did the first plot look so different? This example of a misleading use of statistics is perhaps one of the more clear cases of intent to mislead, despite attempts of the administration to make it appear accidentalsee May 19 story about the response in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Mariano and Trubey Citation2020). As we mentioned earlier, the sample size is of utmost importance when it comes to deciding the worth of a study or its results. This is a Simpsons Paradox at its finest, and it happens when the data hides a conditional variable that can significantly influence the results. PLoS Med. Reuters / Via reddit.com 2. However, closer inspection reveals that the dates along the horizontal axis are not in order of time, with, for instance, May 1 appearing before April 30 and April 26 appearing in between May 7 (on the left) and May 3 (on the right). You can see the updated version below. Omitting baselines, or the axis of a graph, is one of the most common ways data is manipulated in graphs. You will end up with a statistical error called selective bias. This misleading data example is also referred to as data dredging (and related to flawed correlations). In addition to our cases motivating discussion of association, the plots also offer an important consideration of how scaling modifications can mislead the consumer. newrepublic.com / Via reddit.com Advertisement 3. While it is quite clear that statistical data has the potential to be misused, it can also ethically drive market value in the digital world. Truncating axes is a very dangerous false statistics practice, as it can help create wrong narratives around important topics. An infographic with tips on how to talk to your community about health misinformation. The prevalence of health misinformation was the highest on Twitter and on issues related to smoking products and drugs. Citation2020; GAISE College Report ASA Revision Committee Citation2016), in particular as it relates to being a critical consumer of statistics. It would be preposterous to say that they cause each other and that is exactly why it is our example. Effects related to COVID-19 During the pandemic, health misinformation has led people to decline vaccines, reject public health measures, and use unproven treatments. Moreover, this is a common topic appearing in tertiary introductory statistics courses, as well as courses on quantitative reasoning. On Sept. 29, 2015, Republicans from the U.S. Congress questioned Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, regarding the misappropriation of $500 million in annual federal funding. This is with the same aim of making it seem like the cases are dropping. We use cookies to improve your website experience. With the increasing reliance on intelligent solution automation for variable data point comparisons, best practices (i.e., design and scaling) should be implemented prior to comparing data from different sources, datasets, times, and locations. However, a closer look shows that the X-axis starts at 420,000 instead of 0. It becomes hard to believe any analysis! In this case 100/1.2% =88. Another unfair method of polling is to ask a question, but precede it with a conditional statement or a statement of fact. To avoid this issue, you should always pick a random sample of people whose background may or may not be related to the topic of the survey. See examples and a list of best practices here! Collecting data from too small a group can skew your survey and test results. Increase resources and technical assistance to state and local public health agencies to help them better address questions, concerns, and misinformation. When an experiment or a survey is led on a totally not significant sample size, not only will the results be unusable, but the way of presenting them - namely as percentages - will be totally misleading. Misleading pie chart 4. A study of millions of journal articles shows that their authors are increasingly reporting p-values but are often doing so in a misleading way, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.P-values are a measure of statistical significance intended to inform scientific conclusions. Misinformation is information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence at the time. Going against convention 8. 5) How To Avoid & Identify The Misuse Of Statistics? Misleading Coronavirus graphs. While certain topics listed here are likely to stir emotion depending on ones point of view, their inclusion is for data demonstration purposes only. Annual Data 3. Misleading statistics are dangerous. Each is likely a result of a third factor, that being: an increased population, due to the high tourism season in the month of June. The company agreed to change Vitaminwater labels.. Ebola, for example, kills 50% of the people it infects on average, which is why the doctors who treat it wear hazmat suits. However, the telling of half-truths through study is not only limited to mathematical amateurs. The below graph is the one most often referenced to disprove global warming. Statistics is regularly used by urban planners to decide how many apartments, shops, stores, etc. The source of the initial criticism appears to have come from The Rachel Maddow Show (yes, the same one that shared a poorly crafted data visualization in Case 1, but carefully dissected the (mis)representation in this case), which can be viewed in a short video tweeted on May 15 by Acyn Torabi.
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