{"id":1049,"date":"2009-05-20T01:00:02","date_gmt":"2009-05-20T09:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1049"},"modified":"2009-04-19T14:37:23","modified_gmt":"2009-04-19T22:37:23","slug":"analytics-and-dubious-correlations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1049","title":{"rendered":"Analytics and Dubious Correlations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being an Asian who suffers from what I call \u201cred face syndrome\u201d (I also call it \u201cbeet red\u201d or \u201clobster red\u201d) I was quite interested when the following article<\/a> was forwarded to me.<\/p>\n

People whose faces turn red when they drink alcohol may be facing more than embarrassment. The flushing may indicate an increased risk for a deadly throat cancer, researchers report.\u00a0 ((Nicholas Bakalar, March 20, 2009.\u00a0 “Drinker’s Red Face May Signal Cancer Risk.”\u00a0 Retrieved from NYTimes.com<\/a> on April 18, 2009.))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What?!?\u00a0 So just because I apparently lack an enzyme that helps to process alcohol, I might be at increased risk for cancer?\u00a0 Read on.<\/p>\n

But those with only one copy can develop a tolerance to acetaldehyde and become heavy drinkers\u2026\u00a0 Reducing drinking can significantly reduce the incidence of this cancer among Asian adults. The researchers calculate that if moderate- or heavy-drinking ALDH2-deficient Japanese men reduced their consumption to under 16 drinks a week, 53 percent of esophageal squamous cell cancers in that group could be prevented.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OK \u2013 so wait just a minute \u2013 I can reduce my risk of cancer by limiting my drinking.\u00a0 ((Not that it matters \u2013 but I don\u2019t drink))\u00a0 So let me get the logic straight here:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I am an Asian with \u201cRed Face Syndrome\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. People with Red Face Syndrome sometimes become heavy drinkers<\/li>\n
  3. Heavy Drinkers have a higher risk for throat cancer<\/li>\n
  4. Therefore people with Red Face Syndrome have a higher risk for throat cancer.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Call me stupid, but this is the most illogical logic I have ever seen published in the New York Times.\u00a0 Did we stop to think that perhaps all heavy drinkers have a higher risk for throat cancer?\u00a0 And did we measure the percentage of heavy drinkers among Asians compared to other populations?\u00a0 In reading the this from the NY times, I certainly believe that numbers 3 and 4 above are correlated, but I\u2019m not at all sure that numbers 1 and 4 above are correlated in any way.\u00a0 Let\u2019s try this logic on or size:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Employees are hired from employee referrals into the call center<\/li>\n
    2. Employees from employee referrals have a high risk of leaving the call center within 1 year<\/li>\n
    3. Therefore, employee referrals are a poor source of hire for the call center.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      I\u2019m hoping you can see my trouble with this logic.\u00a0 In the employee referral case, we didn\u2019t measure the performance against other groupings of applicant sourcing, nor did we validate that turnover within 1 year was actually abnormal.\u00a0 Here\u2019s all I\u2019m saying.\u00a0 Depending on hour you design your analytics, they could seem like they are telling you a certain story.\u00a0 Hopefully you have someone in your HRIT or analytics organization who has taken a statistics course sometime in her past.\u00a0 Misinterpreting data can be pretty silly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Being an Asian who suffers from what I call \u201cred face syndrome\u201d (I also call it \u201cbeet red\u201d or \u201clobster red\u201d) I was quite interested when the following article was forwarded to me. People whose faces turn red when they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-data-metrics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1050,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}