Great article by Emily Oster
Here is a great article by Emily Oster over at fivethirtyeight.com.
TLDR; Get vaccinated.
Posted Aug 19, 2014, 8:15 PM UTC
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Very cool read! Thanks!
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Certainly a great article, but it would be nice to have a better idea of the subject matter in the title of the post. For future reference :-D
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It is an interesting article that looks at why vaccination rates in the 90's at the state level might not be enough to confer herd immunity in the state because of pockets of lower vaccination rates scattered throughout at the county level. I for one would like to see this analysis done for some provinces in Canada (where I am from). If I find the time (and the data) would anyone be interested in seeing what it looks like for Canada?
Not an epidemiologist (or a statistician), but doesn't this try to extract causation from a spatial correlation without really having a basis for that arrow of causation? (It's a reasonable conclusion, I just don't know if it's well-founded.) It's not too difficult to imagine a third factor that causes both, for instance. I'd like to at least see a temporal element as well.
By the way, any thoughts on reintroducing whole-cell pertussis vaccine? The acellular one they use today is less effective (lasts less time, "sticks" less often) but also has fewer side effects.