Sometimes it looks like a risk but isn't

Suppose one day you come across a study showing that female employees are two to five times as likely to miss time from work due to repetitive strain injury than are men.

What does this mean?

1. Women are more vulnerable to repetitive strain injuries than are men.
2. Women are more likely than are men to be employed in jobs with tasks that can lead to repetitive strain injuries.

The correct answer: We don’t know.

The results of the above study simply state a factual finding. It is certainly an interesting finding. And a truthful one, assuming the research project was carried out in a responsible manner.

But it doesn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship between being female and repetitive strain injury.

More research must be done to see if women doing the same physical tasks for the same period of time as men have a higher rate of repetitive strain injury. Other factors such as job experience, physical health or age might need to be considered as well.

Epidemiologists are scientists who look for links in data that help us understand why people get certain diseases. Often there isn’t enough data to prove a cause-and-effect relationship. For such cases scientists like to use the term, “a risk associated with” instead of “a cause of.”

We all need to be careful about jumping to conclusions that are not warranted by the facts. In determining the cause of work-related injuries and illnesses it is especially important to adapt our thinking to new data as additional research is carried out, because new facts often lead to new conclusions.

More about...

Reliable resources for work-related health information

Blogs for a safe and healthy workplace

Free tools for your health and safety programs

Directory of health and safety info on the Web from JG and HealthWorks

How we can help and who we are

THINKING POINTS

"Inferring a false causal relation is often just a mistake, and it can be the result of reasoning which is as cogent as can be, since all reasoning to causal conclusions is ultimately inductive." From Fallacy Files