15 ms·

When I read studies like this, one of the first things I like to do is look around for critiques. On conservative commentary website Stream.org, statistician W

by jawns 10y ago

When I read studies like this, one of the first things I like to do is look around for critiques. On conservative commentary website Stream.org, statistician William M. Briggs (who, take it for what it's worth, opposes same-sex marriage) offers a critique of the study's methodology and conclusion, as well as the conclusion that the study expressly does not make, but that the headlines have made: https://stream.org/no-a-study-did-not-show-that-same-sex-marriage-laws-reduce-teen-suicide-rates/ https://stream.org/no-a-study-did-not-show-that-same-sex-mar... A few interesting snippets from his critique: > A weighted 8.6% to a weighted 8%, they say. This is a 7% reduction, all right, but a minor tweak in the actual weighted number. The numbers are weighted averages across several states and the result of a statistical model called a linear regression. The 0.6 drop is not observed, but is the output from a model. > The numbers within states is anything but straightforward (the authors provide graphs). For instance, some states show reported suicide attempts increasing after gmarriage (New York, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, for example). The graphs also indicate a general decline in rates before gmarriage and continuing afterwards (see their Fig. 3). > putting Ebola in the model works equally well with gmarriage to explain the data. So do the disasters of those crashing Malaysian airliners, or the fighting in Ukraine and Crimea. So does the 2014 Winter Olympics! One other point that Briggs makes only indirectly, but bears mentioning, is that measuring the number of self-reported unsuccessful suicide attempts only provides us with part of the picture; we can't make any firm conclusions about what its rise or fall says about suicide prevention unless we also know the number of _successful_ suicide attempts. For instance, it might be the case that some suicide prevention factor reduces the likelihood that any given suicide attempt is successful. Maybe hospitals have gotten better at reducing the mortality rate of intentional overdoses. In such a case, the rate of suicide attempts might remain relatively flat, but the rate of unsuccessful suicide attempts would rise, and the rate of successful suicide attempts would fall.

libeclipse 10y ago
Whether or not you agree with same sex marriage (I myself am libertarian) this comment is well thought out and informative. I don't see why it was downvoted.
thebooktocome 10y ago
His critique seems rather desperate. Statistical noise is always present, so of course suicide among GSM teens did not uniformly drop. The JAMA study used different years for different states, as same-sex marriage became legal in different states at different times. His criticism about "any event in 2014 explains this drop in suicide" is malformed.
- jawns 10y ago
  This is a fair point, although it should be noted that 19 states legalized gay marriage in 2014 compared with only 16 states in any of the prior years examined. And 8 of those 16 were in 2013. So, 27 out of 35 states examined legalized same-sex marriage either in 2014 or within one year prior. I would be interested to learn just how much the data from those other 8 states affect the weighted average the authors used to identify the association. By the way, if you look at the accompanying figure 2 and figure 3 in the JAMA article, you will see just how noisy the data is for both Wave 1 and Wave 2 states, as well as the relative lack of post-2014 data points. Honestly, just looking at those two charts should be enough to give you a healthy skepticism about the conclusion, whatever your ideological views.
- wjnc 10y ago
  Have you looked at the main plots? They're terribly noisy. And because of the difference-in-difference design, a pretty strong covariate for adult suicide (economy / labour participation) is not taken into account. Take perspective of the modeller. What would be the first circle of influence in teen suicide? Probably direct social interactions (family, peers). Second circle? More abstract things like succes in school, relationships, the absence of bullying. For a regulatory change to have a meaningfull and measurable effect on suicides (literally the most drastic step available) is hard on first sight. And then the step to research design. How would one expect to find a determinating factor by a DiD-design with only some regulatory measure as an explanatory factor? For me, after looking into this study. First explain me the state by state differences in teen suicides over time adequately, before you start explaining the effect of gay marriage on teen suicides.
- edblarney 10y ago
  I think it's rather desperate to introduce to very different things and conclude that one causes the other. Along with 'gay marriage', 'gay acceptance' has been on the rise in general. Social interventions, heck, social media and the internet (i.e people can form like minded networks etc..). Even a small change in policing and social policy could cause this. A bullying program. There are so many things that could 'cause' a tiny drop in teen suicide.
DanBC 10y ago
> > > putting Ebola in the model works equally well with gmarriage to explain the data. So do the disasters of those crashing Malaysian airliners, or the fighting in Ukraine and Crimea. So does the 2014 Winter Olympics! Perhaps. But we know there's a correlation between being gay and dying by suicide. We know that gay people are more likely to die by suicide than straight people. Suicide is a complex phenomena and we should avoid simplistic reasoning, but anything that makes life easier for people to be gay is likely to reduce the numbers of death by suicide of gay people. EDIT: I don't normally comment on downvotes, but this post is getting lots and I'm a it confused about why. Here's the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm > Negative attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people put these youth at increased risk for experiences with violence, compared with other students.1 Violence can include behaviors such as bullying, teasing, harassment, physical assault, and suicide-related behaviors. [...] > LGBTQ youth are also at increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors, suicide attempts, and suicide. A nationally representative study of adolescents in grades 7–12 found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers.3 More studies are needed to better understand the risks for suicide among transgender youth. However, one study with 55 transgender youth found that about 25% reported suicide attempts.4 Wikipedia has a reasonable collection of references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_among_LGBT_youth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_among_LGBT_youth
- dublinclontarf 10y ago
  Is the study finding correlations between suicide in general or suicide of gays?
  - toupeetape 10y ago
    The association between same-sex marriage legalization and reduction in suicide attempts was also significant for teens who identified as sexual minorities. For this subgroup, there was a 14-percent relative reduction in suicide attempts after the passage of same-sex marriage laws. So it would seem that the drop was more pronounced among gay people.
- 10y ago
phkahler 10y ago
On reading the paragraph about limitations, my first thought was maybe by making this alternative family structure legal, more kids talked openly about it, got picked on more as a result, and were more likely to complete a suicide attempt. Hey, it's just one possible explanation for a "decline" in attempts when they have no data on completions. I hate studies that ignore missing data by saying it's not relevant.
stefanwlb 10y ago
This is not the first time they scew the results to suit their own agenda.. Moving along...
mikeash 10y ago
This is a bit of a tangent, but I find it really bizarre that a site which says it's "championing freedom, smaller government" is so stridently against same-sex marriage. I can only conclude that some people have a radically different idea of "freedom" and "smaller government" than I do. Bringing it back to the original topic a bit, it's sad that people's reactions are so predictable. People in favor of same-sex marriage think this study is great. People who oppose it think it sucks. How boring! Show me someone in favor of same-sex marriage who thinks this study is terrible, or someone against who thinks the study is really good.
- lisper 10y ago
  > some people have a radically different idea of "freedom" and "smaller government" than I do Or they are not acting in good faith.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  "Freedom" means, The freedom to harm others, the freedom to be the undisputed top of the political and social food chain, and the freedom to maintain that position at any cost. They want the freedom to limit the freedom of others. They see no problem with that at all.
  - willvarfar 10y ago
    Was that not the 'freedom' the Pilgrim Fathers were chasing too?
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      100%, absolutely, yes yes yes. Fortunately most of us aren't descended from those antisocials who were too unpleasant for period Britain to tolerate.
- judah 10y ago
  >> "I can only conclude that some people have a radically different idea of "freedom" and "smaller government" than I do." Small government conservative here. It's actually pretty simple: Small government: the government should stop meddling in marriage altogether. It's a social and often religious institution. Freedom: We take seriously the founders' belief that government should not infringe on religious liberty.
brudgers 10y ago
When I read statistics, I consider the source and it's probable motivations. Pediatrics is a journal published by the American Medical Association. In general, I hold the belief that it publishes material in furtherance of medical science and public health policies which are intended to produce positive medical outcomes subject to normal variation in human ethics and fallibility. Maybe this is a liberal or conservative or marxist or capitalist political position, I can't tell. Maybe it's agenda is secret. Maybe it's not. Any statistical study can be criticized as 'only being likely, not being certain.' Briggs does not provide contrary epidemiological evidence. His critique is based on the possibility of alternative explanation inherent in all statistical studies. At best there's a failure to understand the epistemological character of empirical knowledge.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Pediatrics is a journal published by the American Medical Association. In general, I hold the belief that it publishes material in furtherance of medical science and public health policies which are intended to produce positive medical outcomes subject to normal variation in human ethics and fallibility. Well, popular (or increasingly mainstream) results get more grants, peer acceptance and media coverage, so there's always that. Up to the eighties those same journals would have no qualms "proving" that homosexuality is harmful, and in fact there were tons of studies to that effect. (It works the same, but with an inverse sign, for those scientists going for the conservative audience and its, increasingly fewer, and more marginalised, grants). So it could be more that the tide has turned, and a push to get a cute result to publish and get some publicity and good will, than an actual causation.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - brudgers 10y ago
    I assign a lower probability of non-scientific motivations leading to claims lacking evidentiary basis appearing in the journal Pediatrics and assign a higher probability to such motivations leading to claims appearing on the website which refutes the report.
downandout 10y ago
How many gay teens were trying to commit suicide because they weren't allowed to get married (while in high school)? Probably very few. It might be that the kinds of states that legalized gay marriage - many of them liberal leaning - tend to also have a better social services infrastructure, which could cause a drop in teen suicide attempts. But that conclusion wouldn't have fit into the political narrative that the study's authors were clearly after. So while the data is real, for whatever reason this study focused on seeking out a specific political conclusion from it that is tenuously linked at best. I would like to see who funded this research.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  It's more than just marriage, though. Same sex marriage is seen as an acceptance thing as well. By seeing that they are treated like equals, and given the same rights, they'll feel more like they actually belong in society.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > How many gay teens were trying to commit suicide because they weren't allowed to get married (while in high school)? We don't know, but probably "some". We can say that a state that forbids gay marriage might have schools that are less inclusive of LGBT teens, and that a state that allows gay marriage might have schools that are more inclusive of LGBT teens; and we sort of know that inclusive schools are important to reduce thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts, and deaths by suicide. (Although more research is needed.) The CDC has some nice info, all sourced: https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm You mentioned funding. That's described in the paper: > Funding/Support: Ms Raifman is supported by training grants T32AI102623 and R25MH083620 from the National Institutes of Health. Dr Austin is supported by training grants T71-MC-00009 and T76-MC-00001 from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, US Department of Health and Human Services. > Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funding sources played no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, or interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
  - 10y ago
Xeoncross 10y ago
> as well as the conclusion that the study expressly does not make, but that the headlines have made This is why I always default to doubting "new study finds ..." until I can see the actual study. Researchers get to choose the headlines about as much as programers get to choose the software features.
wavegeek 10y ago
Andrew Gelman seems to be fairly middle of the road and he is a leading statistician - literally wrote the textbook(s). He is fairly skeptical http://andrewgelman.com/2017/02/22/cloak-and-dagger/ http://andrewgelman.com/2017/02/22/cloak-and-dagger/

by jawns 10y ago

libeclipse 10y ago

Whether or not you agree with same sex marriage (I myself am libertarian) this comment is well thought out and informative. I don't see why it was downvoted.

thebooktocome 10y ago

His critique seems rather desperate. Statistical noise is always present, so of course suicide among GSM teens did not uniformly drop. The JAMA study used different years for different states, as same-sex marriage became legal in different states at different times. His criticism about "any event in 2014 explains this drop in suicide" is malformed.

jawns 10y ago
This is a fair point, although it should be noted that 19 states legalized gay marriage in 2014 compared with only 16 states in any of the prior years examined. And 8 of those 16 were in 2013. So, 27 out of 35 states examined legalized same-sex marriage either in 2014 or within one year prior. I would be interested to learn just how much the data from those other 8 states affect the weighted average the authors used to identify the association. By the way, if you look at the accompanying figure 2 and figure 3 in the JAMA article, you will see just how noisy the data is for both Wave 1 and Wave 2 states, as well as the relative lack of post-2014 data points. Honestly, just looking at those two charts should be enough to give you a healthy skepticism about the conclusion, whatever your ideological views.
wjnc 10y ago
Have you looked at the main plots? They're terribly noisy. And because of the difference-in-difference design, a pretty strong covariate for adult suicide (economy / labour participation) is not taken into account. Take perspective of the modeller. What would be the first circle of influence in teen suicide? Probably direct social interactions (family, peers). Second circle? More abstract things like succes in school, relationships, the absence of bullying. For a regulatory change to have a meaningfull and measurable effect on suicides (literally the most drastic step available) is hard on first sight. And then the step to research design. How would one expect to find a determinating factor by a DiD-design with only some regulatory measure as an explanatory factor? For me, after looking into this study. First explain me the state by state differences in teen suicides over time adequately, before you start explaining the effect of gay marriage on teen suicides.
edblarney 10y ago
I think it's rather desperate to introduce to very different things and conclude that one causes the other. Along with 'gay marriage', 'gay acceptance' has been on the rise in general. Social interventions, heck, social media and the internet (i.e people can form like minded networks etc..). Even a small change in policing and social policy could cause this. A bullying program. There are so many things that could 'cause' a tiny drop in teen suicide.

DanBC 10y ago

> > > putting Ebola in the model works equally well with gmarriage to explain the data. So do the disasters of those crashing Malaysian airliners, or the fighting in Ukraine and Crimea. So does the 2014 Winter Olympics! Perhaps. But we know there's a correlation between being gay and dying by suicide. We know that gay people are more likely to die by suicide than straight people. Suicide is a complex phenomena and we should avoid simplistic reasoning, but anything that makes life easier for people to be gay is likely to reduce the numbers of death by suicide of gay people. EDIT: I don't normally comment on downvotes, but this post is getting lots and I'm a it confused about why. Here's the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm > Negative attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people put these youth at increased risk for experiences with violence, compared with other students.1 Violence can include behaviors such as bullying, teasing, harassment, physical assault, and suicide-related behaviors. [...] > LGBTQ youth are also at increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors, suicide attempts, and suicide. A nationally representative study of adolescents in grades 7–12 found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers.3 More studies are needed to better understand the risks for suicide among transgender youth. However, one study with 55 transgender youth found that about 25% reported suicide attempts.4 Wikipedia has a reasonable collection of references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_among_LGBT_youth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_among_LGBT_youth

dublinclontarf 10y ago
Is the study finding correlations between suicide in general or suicide of gays?
- toupeetape 10y ago
  The association between same-sex marriage legalization and reduction in suicide attempts was also significant for teens who identified as sexual minorities. For this subgroup, there was a 14-percent relative reduction in suicide attempts after the passage of same-sex marriage laws. So it would seem that the drop was more pronounced among gay people.
10y ago

phkahler 10y ago

On reading the paragraph about limitations, my first thought was maybe by making this alternative family structure legal, more kids talked openly about it, got picked on more as a result, and were more likely to complete a suicide attempt. Hey, it's just one possible explanation for a "decline" in attempts when they have no data on completions. I hate studies that ignore missing data by saying it's not relevant.

stefanwlb 10y ago

This is not the first time they scew the results to suit their own agenda.. Moving along...

mikeash 10y ago

This is a bit of a tangent, but I find it really bizarre that a site which says it's "championing freedom, smaller government" is so stridently against same-sex marriage. I can only conclude that some people have a radically different idea of "freedom" and "smaller government" than I do. Bringing it back to the original topic a bit, it's sad that people's reactions are so predictable. People in favor of same-sex marriage think this study is great. People who oppose it think it sucks. How boring! Show me someone in favor of same-sex marriage who thinks this study is terrible, or someone against who thinks the study is really good.

lisper 10y ago
> some people have a radically different idea of "freedom" and "smaller government" than I do Or they are not acting in good faith.
M_Grey 10y ago
"Freedom" means, The freedom to harm others, the freedom to be the undisputed top of the political and social food chain, and the freedom to maintain that position at any cost. They want the freedom to limit the freedom of others. They see no problem with that at all.
- willvarfar 10y ago
  Was that not the 'freedom' the Pilgrim Fathers were chasing too?
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    100%, absolutely, yes yes yes. Fortunately most of us aren't descended from those antisocials who were too unpleasant for period Britain to tolerate.
judah 10y ago
>> "I can only conclude that some people have a radically different idea of "freedom" and "smaller government" than I do." Small government conservative here. It's actually pretty simple: Small government: the government should stop meddling in marriage altogether. It's a social and often religious institution. Freedom: We take seriously the founders' belief that government should not infringe on religious liberty.

brudgers 10y ago

When I read statistics, I consider the source and it's probable motivations. Pediatrics is a journal published by the American Medical Association. In general, I hold the belief that it publishes material in furtherance of medical science and public health policies which are intended to produce positive medical outcomes subject to normal variation in human ethics and fallibility. Maybe this is a liberal or conservative or marxist or capitalist political position, I can't tell. Maybe it's agenda is secret. Maybe it's not. Any statistical study can be criticized as 'only being likely, not being certain.' Briggs does not provide contrary epidemiological evidence. His critique is based on the possibility of alternative explanation inherent in all statistical studies. At best there's a failure to understand the epistemological character of empirical knowledge.

coldtea 10y ago
>Pediatrics is a journal published by the American Medical Association. In general, I hold the belief that it publishes material in furtherance of medical science and public health policies which are intended to produce positive medical outcomes subject to normal variation in human ethics and fallibility. Well, popular (or increasingly mainstream) results get more grants, peer acceptance and media coverage, so there's always that. Up to the eighties those same journals would have no qualms "proving" that homosexuality is harmful, and in fact there were tons of studies to that effect. (It works the same, but with an inverse sign, for those scientists going for the conservative audience and its, increasingly fewer, and more marginalised, grants). So it could be more that the tide has turned, and a push to get a cute result to publish and get some publicity and good will, than an actual causation.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- brudgers 10y ago
  I assign a lower probability of non-scientific motivations leading to claims lacking evidentiary basis appearing in the journal Pediatrics and assign a higher probability to such motivations leading to claims appearing on the website which refutes the report.

downandout 10y ago

How many gay teens were trying to commit suicide because they weren't allowed to get married (while in high school)? Probably very few. It might be that the kinds of states that legalized gay marriage - many of them liberal leaning - tend to also have a better social services infrastructure, which could cause a drop in teen suicide attempts. But that conclusion wouldn't have fit into the political narrative that the study's authors were clearly after. So while the data is real, for whatever reason this study focused on seeking out a specific political conclusion from it that is tenuously linked at best. I would like to see who funded this research.

st3v3r 10y ago
It's more than just marriage, though. Same sex marriage is seen as an acceptance thing as well. By seeing that they are treated like equals, and given the same rights, they'll feel more like they actually belong in society.
DanBC 10y ago
> How many gay teens were trying to commit suicide because they weren't allowed to get married (while in high school)? We don't know, but probably "some". We can say that a state that forbids gay marriage might have schools that are less inclusive of LGBT teens, and that a state that allows gay marriage might have schools that are more inclusive of LGBT teens; and we sort of know that inclusive schools are important to reduce thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts, and deaths by suicide. (Although more research is needed.) The CDC has some nice info, all sourced: https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm https://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm You mentioned funding. That's described in the paper: > Funding/Support: Ms Raifman is supported by training grants T32AI102623 and R25MH083620 from the National Institutes of Health. Dr Austin is supported by training grants T71-MC-00009 and T76-MC-00001 from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, US Department of Health and Human Services. > Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funding sources played no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, or interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
- 10y ago

Xeoncross 10y ago

> as well as the conclusion that the study expressly does not make, but that the headlines have made This is why I always default to doubting "new study finds ..." until I can see the actual study. Researchers get to choose the headlines about as much as programers get to choose the software features.

wavegeek 10y ago

Andrew Gelman seems to be fairly middle of the road and he is a leading statistician - literally wrote the textbook(s). He is fairly skeptical http://andrewgelman.com/2017/02/22/cloak-and-dagger/ http://andrewgelman.com/2017/02/22/cloak-and-dagger/