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The strong evidences you are talking about are usually confounded by socioeconomic status. One recent longitudinal study in New Zealand have found only a very w

by monort 5y ago

The strong evidences you are talking about are usually confounded by socioeconomic status. One recent longitudinal study in New Zealand have found only a very weak correlation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5801257/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5801257/

jeffbee 5y ago
That study isn't as powerful as what I mentioned. That is a longitudinal study of children who were exposed to lead, and their life outcomes. The study I want to mention was of children, all of whom were exposed to lead, but only some of whom were treated for it, based on a threshold of blood lead concentration. Figure 4 in this paper is particularly compelling. They show a strong correlation between blood lead levels and violent criminal behavior in later life, but the intervention group, who were exposed to lead but received treatments for it, had much lower rates of crime. You should read it to see if you think they didn't control for socioeconomic factors well enough. Section II and Table 1 in particular. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20160056 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20160056
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  If one were receiving treatment for lead, wouldn’t that correlate with socioeconomic status? I’m sure many poor people went untreated and poverty leads to violent crime. Which page addresses this? I’m too lay to understand.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    The treatments in question are administered by the state, at no charge, and some of them are mandatory. It's really not a long paper. Go read it.
  - Kranar 5y ago
    In the U.S., yes. In the rest of the developed world, no.
    - mmvhncx 5y ago
      Impoverished children and expecting mothers have access to medicine paid by the government/taxpayer in the US through Medicaid I know it's fun to posture about how backwards the US healthcare system is but we actually do literally have the system in place that you're virtue signaling about us not having, as it applies to children People act like the US has no welfare at all and it just isn't true. Children whose parents can't afford treatment can still get treatment, and have been able to for more than half a century. My own niece was born in a hospital because of this. My adult sister received treatment for her collapsed lung at the same time, paid for by the taxpayer, because she couldn't afford it. Medicare and Medicaid might not be perfect but acting like the US has no safety net is a lie
      - dv_dt 5y ago
        In an shorthand comment, I’m not sure if we can differentiate if the commenter was saying there is literally no safety net, or if the safety net is insufficient, and arguably unevenly applied based on region and race. One anecdote of someone reviving a medical service is certainly not sufficient for a discussion of the latter.
  - jvanderbot 5y ago
    Whenever a treatment is given based on a strict income threshold you have a nice natural experiment. Those who have income <= T receive treatment. Those who are > T (even one dollar above) do not. Therefore, those who are "near" T are a great cohort to study effects of the treatment, since their socioeconomic factors are so close. It sounds like the parent comment was saying exactly this occurred for children exposed to lead, and those in the treatment group went on to have better outcomes. EDIT: Looking through the abstract, it appears the threshold was on blood / lead concentrations. This means those who differed only a tiny amount in lead concentrations received different treatments (some vs none), and had different outcomes despite being similar in all other metrics. Figure 4 was pretty interesting.
  - mandevil 5y ago
    No, the treatments were all paid for by the government of North Carolina in this case, and were based on levels of lead concentration in the blood, not socioeconomic status. So by comparing those with slightly above the threshold (who got treatment and thus ended up with significantly lower lead levels in their blood) and those with slightly below the threshold (who did not receive treatment and therefore ended up with higher levels of lead in their blood) you can make an estimate of the effect of lead in the blood that should cut across SES. (This is described on page 316 of the pdf- actually page 2- if you tested above the 10 microgram/deciliter concentration twice you got treatment, if you tested above only once you did not get treatment. They did a matched control group where the initial tests matched a test in the treatment group and generally matched the SES and geography, but the second test was in the 5-10 mcg/dcl range. Thus there is strong evidence that the control kid had a blood-lead problem but just missed the cut-off for government treatment.)

by monort 5y ago

jeffbee 5y ago

That study isn't as powerful as what I mentioned. That is a longitudinal study of children who were exposed to lead, and their life outcomes. The study I want to mention was of children, all of whom were exposed to lead, but only some of whom were treated for it, based on a threshold of blood lead concentration. Figure 4 in this paper is particularly compelling. They show a strong correlation between blood lead levels and violent criminal behavior in later life, but the intervention group, who were exposed to lead but received treatments for it, had much lower rates of crime. You should read it to see if you think they didn't control for socioeconomic factors well enough. Section II and Table 1 in particular. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20160056 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/app.20160056

birdyrooster 5y ago
If one were receiving treatment for lead, wouldn’t that correlate with socioeconomic status? I’m sure many poor people went untreated and poverty leads to violent crime. Which page addresses this? I’m too lay to understand.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  The treatments in question are administered by the state, at no charge, and some of them are mandatory. It's really not a long paper. Go read it.
- Kranar 5y ago
  In the U.S., yes. In the rest of the developed world, no.
  - mmvhncx 5y ago
    Impoverished children and expecting mothers have access to medicine paid by the government/taxpayer in the US through Medicaid I know it's fun to posture about how backwards the US healthcare system is but we actually do literally have the system in place that you're virtue signaling about us not having, as it applies to children People act like the US has no welfare at all and it just isn't true. Children whose parents can't afford treatment can still get treatment, and have been able to for more than half a century. My own niece was born in a hospital because of this. My adult sister received treatment for her collapsed lung at the same time, paid for by the taxpayer, because she couldn't afford it. Medicare and Medicaid might not be perfect but acting like the US has no safety net is a lie
    - dv_dt 5y ago
      In an shorthand comment, I’m not sure if we can differentiate if the commenter was saying there is literally no safety net, or if the safety net is insufficient, and arguably unevenly applied based on region and race. One anecdote of someone reviving a medical service is certainly not sufficient for a discussion of the latter.
- jvanderbot 5y ago
  Whenever a treatment is given based on a strict income threshold you have a nice natural experiment. Those who have income <= T receive treatment. Those who are > T (even one dollar above) do not. Therefore, those who are "near" T are a great cohort to study effects of the treatment, since their socioeconomic factors are so close. It sounds like the parent comment was saying exactly this occurred for children exposed to lead, and those in the treatment group went on to have better outcomes. EDIT: Looking through the abstract, it appears the threshold was on blood / lead concentrations. This means those who differed only a tiny amount in lead concentrations received different treatments (some vs none), and had different outcomes despite being similar in all other metrics. Figure 4 was pretty interesting.
- mandevil 5y ago
  No, the treatments were all paid for by the government of North Carolina in this case, and were based on levels of lead concentration in the blood, not socioeconomic status. So by comparing those with slightly above the threshold (who got treatment and thus ended up with significantly lower lead levels in their blood) and those with slightly below the threshold (who did not receive treatment and therefore ended up with higher levels of lead in their blood) you can make an estimate of the effect of lead in the blood that should cut across SES. (This is described on page 316 of the pdf- actually page 2- if you tested above the 10 microgram/deciliter concentration twice you got treatment, if you tested above only once you did not get treatment. They did a matched control group where the initial tests matched a test in the treatment group and generally matched the SES and geography, but the second test was in the 5-10 mcg/dcl range. Thus there is strong evidence that the control kid had a blood-lead problem but just missed the cut-off for government treatment.)