Statistics by Ricardo Ocaña-Riola
Estadística Española, 2017
RESUMEN: Existe amplia evidencia del mal uso de la estadística en el ámbito de las ciencias fácti... more RESUMEN: Existe amplia evidencia del mal uso de la estadística en el ámbito de las ciencias fácticas. En parte, el problema es debido al desconocimiento fuera del ámbito estadístico de qué es la estadística, cuál es su método y qué cualificación debe tener una persona que realice actividades de investigación, docencia o asesoría estadística. Este trabajo define qué es la estadística y qué es un profesional de la estadística en el marco de la ciencia contemporánea, revisa el estado de la estadística como profesión regulada en el mundo y propone cauces para que la Estadística sea profesión regulada en España.
ABSTRACT: There is wide evidence of the misuse of statistics in the field of factual sciences. In part, the problem is due to the lack of knowledge outside the statistical field of what statistics is, what its method is, and what qualification must have a person who carries out research, teaching or statistical advice. This work defines what statistics is as well as what a statistician is in the framework of contemporary science, reviews the status of statistics as a regulated profession in the world and proposes ways for Statistics to become a regulated profession in Spain.
Statistics in Biosciences, 2016
Statistics plays a crucial role in research, planning and decision-making in the health sciences.... more Statistics plays a crucial role in research, planning and decision-making in the health sciences. Progress in technologies and continued research in computational statistics has enabled us to implement sophisticated mathematical models within software that are handled by non-statistician researchers. As a result, over the last decades, medical journals have published a host of papers that use some novel statistical method. The aim of this paper is to present a review on how the statistical methods are being applied in the construction of scientific knowledge in health sciences, as well as, to propose some improvement actions. From the early 20th century, there has been a remarkable surge in scientific evidence alerting on the errors that many non-statistician researchers were making in applying statistical methods. Today, several studies continue showing that a large percentage of articles published in high impact factor journals contain errors in data analysis or interpretation of results, with the ensuing repercussions on the validity and efficiency of the research conducted. Scientific community should reflect on the causes that have led to this situation, the consequences to the advancement of scientific knowledge and the solutions to this problem.
Spatial analysis by Ricardo Ocaña-Riola
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 2012
Social Indicators Research, 2010
... Correos 2070, 18080 Granada, Spain e-mail: [email protected] 123 ... The... more ... Correos 2070, 18080 Granada, Spain e-mail: [email protected] 123 ... The conditions required to enable the factor analysis to be applied were checked by Bartlett's test and by KaiserMeyerOlkin (KMO) sampling adequacy testing. ...
Epidemiology, 2009
Mortality is one of the most widely used indicators in small-area ecologic studies. Both accessib... more Mortality is one of the most widely used indicators in small-area ecologic studies. Both accessibility to mortality data and advances in the development of new disease mapping techniques have contributed to an abundance of mortality maps and atlases over the last decade. Results may be biased in this kind of study if there has been unmeasured geographic mobility of the population. Most published papers tend to neglect this possibility. We use the theory of dynamics systems to demonstrate that migratory flows unmonitored by official population registers may lead to major errors in mortality rates and relative risks. Simulations in 4 scenarios showed more than 8% underestimation of the mortality rate and more than 11% underestimation of relative risk in areas with high uncontrolled emigration, and above 19% overestimation of mortality rate and above 15% overestimation of relative risk in areas with high uncontrolled immigration.Researchers conducting small-area epidemiologic studies should explore the reliability of population information in geographic areas before drawing hypothesis or conclusions on other possible causes of mortality differences.
Statistics in Medicine, 2007
The ongoing spread of spatial analysis techniques for small areas has facilitated the publication... more The ongoing spread of spatial analysis techniques for small areas has facilitated the publication of mortality and morbidity Atlases based on time periods that group information spanning several years. Although this is a widespread practice, this paper proves that the use of count data aggregated over time for disease mapping may give inappropriate area-specific relative risk. As a result, both decision-making and healthcare policies could be affected by inappropriate model specifications using aggregated information over time. The Poisson distribution properties were used in order to quantify the bias in area-specific relative risk estimation due to count data aggregated over time. A hierarchical Bayesian model with spatio-temporal random structure is proposed as an alternative to smoothing relative risk if the period of study need to span several years. Methods discussed in this paper were applied to a small-area survey on male mortality from all causes in Southern Spain for the period 1985-1999. The results suggest that particular caution should be taken when interpreting risk maps based on clustered annual data that use models with no temporal structure to smooth out the rates.
Social Indicators Research, 2005
... As a result, rural and urban would be the two opposite ends of a continuum that describes the... more ... As a result, rural and urban would be the two opposite ends of a continuum that describes the geographical areas in a region or country (Hewitt, 1989; Pe´rez-Yruela, 1990; Garcı´a-Sanz, 1994). Rural settings can be defined by a number of characteristics. ...
Social Indicators Research, 2008
Revista Española de Salud Pública, 2008
... 1), José María Mayoral-Cortés (2), Carmen Sánchez-Cantalejo (1), Silvia Toro-Cárdenas (1), Al... more ... 1), José María Mayoral-Cortés (2), Carmen Sánchez-Cantalejo (1), Silvia Toro-Cárdenas (1), Alberto ... La siguiente tonalidad, más celeste, señala los municipios en los que la tendencia presentó un ... Salas J, Díez F, Puerta J, Zambrana JL, Delgado M, Rivera F, Gallego F. Tasa ...
El objetivo de este trabajo fue el de derivar un índice de privación material que, a la vez que r... more El objetivo de este trabajo fue el de derivar un índice de privación material que, a la vez que resumiese las condiciones socioeconómicas de los municipios de la Región Sanitaria Girona, permitiese explicar la variabilidad geográfica de la incidencia del cáncer en la Región. Utilizando como base el índice de privación material de Townsend, y mediante el Análisis de Componentes
Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 2008
Revista Española de Salud Pública, 2005
The aim of this work is to make known the multicentric project AMCAC, whose objective is to descr... more The aim of this work is to make known the multicentric project AMCAC, whose objective is to describe the geographical distribution of mortality from all causes in census groups of the provincial capitals of Andalusia and Catalonia during 1992-2002 and 1994-2000 respectively, and to study the relationship between the sociodemographic characteristics of the census groups and mortality. This is an ecological study in which the analytical unit is the census group. The data correspond to 298,731 individuals (152,913 men and 145,818 women) who died during the study periods in the towns of Almeria, Barcelona, Cadiz, Cordoba, Girona, Granada, Huelva, Jaen, Lleida, Malaga, Seville and Tarragona during the study periods. The dependent variable is the number of deaths observed per census group. The independent variables are the percentage of unemployment, illiteracy and manual workers. Estimation of the moderated relative risk and the study of the associations among the sociodemographic characteristics of the census groups and the mortality will be done for each town and each sex using the Besag-York-Mollie model. Dissemination of the results will help to improve and broaden knowledge about the population's health, and will provide an important starting point to establish the influence of contextual variables on the health of urban populations.
Although there is some experience in the study of mortality inequalities in Spanish cities, there... more Although there is some experience in the study of mortality inequalities in Spanish cities, there are large urban centers that have not yet been investigated using the census tract as the unit of territorial analysis. The coordinated project <Socioeconomic and environmental inequalities in mortality in Spanish cities. The MEDEA project> was designed to fill this gap, with the participation of 10 groups of researchers in Andalusia, Aragon, Catalonia, Galicia, Madrid, Valencia, and the Basque Country. The MEDEA project has four distinguishing features: a) the census tract is used as the basic geographical area; b) statistical methods that include the geographical structure of the region under study are employed for risk estimation; c) data are drawn from three complementary data sources (information on air pollution, information on industrial pollution, and the records of mortality registrars), and d) a coordinated, large-scale analysis, favored by the implantation of coordinated research networks, is carried out. The main objective of the present study was to explain the methods for smoothing mortality indicators in the context of the MEDEA project. This study focusses on the methodology and the results of the Besag, York and…
Social Science & Medicine, 2006
The purpose of this paper is to study the linkage between type of habitat and mortality from all ... more The purpose of this paper is to study the linkage between type of habitat and mortality from all causes in small areas of Southern Spain. An ecological study was conducted on 99,870 people who died between 1985 and 1999. The municipality was taken as the unit of analysis. Data analysis was carried out through hierarchical spatio-temporal bayesian models. Results show a 13.3% reduction in mortality rates among men and 14.1% among women in the most rural areas compared to more urban environments. The study demonstrates the usefulness of socio-demographic indices in small-area geographical analyses.
Revista española de …, 2005
RESUMEN El propósito de este trabajo es dar a conocer el proyecto multicéntrico AMCAC, que tiene ... more RESUMEN El propósito de este trabajo es dar a conocer el proyecto multicéntrico AMCAC, que tiene como objetivos describir la distribución geográfica de la mortalidad por todas las causas en las secciones censales de las capitales de provincia de Andalucía y Cataluña ...
Environmental Health Perspectives, 2004
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Statistics by Ricardo Ocaña-Riola
ABSTRACT: There is wide evidence of the misuse of statistics in the field of factual sciences. In part, the problem is due to the lack of knowledge outside the statistical field of what statistics is, what its method is, and what qualification must have a person who carries out research, teaching or statistical advice. This work defines what statistics is as well as what a statistician is in the framework of contemporary science, reviews the status of statistics as a regulated profession in the world and proposes ways for Statistics to become a regulated profession in Spain.
Spatial analysis by Ricardo Ocaña-Riola
ABSTRACT: There is wide evidence of the misuse of statistics in the field of factual sciences. In part, the problem is due to the lack of knowledge outside the statistical field of what statistics is, what its method is, and what qualification must have a person who carries out research, teaching or statistical advice. This work defines what statistics is as well as what a statistician is in the framework of contemporary science, reviews the status of statistics as a regulated profession in the world and proposes ways for Statistics to become a regulated profession in Spain.