That being said (and it is good to have that URL), I have had
a look at it.

There some 14 different kinds of "outcome" listed in the
"Why Inequality" panel, from "Physical Health" to "Equality
and Global Warming". I click on each of these, and usually
I see a graph.

For "Physical Health", "Mental Health", "Education", "Imprisonment",
"Obesity", "Trust and Community Life", "Violence", "Teenage
Births", "Rich and Poor Countries", "Equality and Global
Warming" all have a graph with the outcome measure stated, and
with a numerical scale, on the Y-axis. For instance, "Physical
Health" shows a graph with "Infant Deaths per 1000 Live Births"
ranging from about 3 to about 7. Which is clear enough. Similarly
for the others.

In all cases, however, the X-axis is "Income Inequality" with
only two indications on it: "LOW" at the left-hand end, "HIGH"
at the righthand end, and no numerical scale at all.

The Y-axis for "Social Mobility", however, only shows "HIGH"
at the top and "LOW" at the bottom. "Child Well-Being" has a
Y-axis labelled "UNICEF Index of Child Well-being" (which, being
an index, is presumably numerical) yet the only indication of
scale is "Better" at tre top and "Worse" at the bottom.
Both of these have the same "LOW"-"HIGH" "Income Inequality"
X-axis as the others.

Nevertheless, all the graphs are scatter-plots, with the points
at different variously-spaced X-coordinates, so must have been
plotted using numbers for "Income Inequality" on the X-axis.
For what it's worth (so far as I have bothered to compare them)
the relative positions of the different countries are consistent
from graph to graph, so presumably the same measure of "Income
Inequality" was used throughout.

But what was it? The main text on that URL is about

  "How Income Inequality is Measured
   There are several ways to measure income inequality."

and then goes on to briefly describe the "20:20 ratio", the
"10:10" ratio, the "median share", the "Gini coefficient" and
the "Robin Hood Index". So far so good. But NOWHERE does it
state which (if any) of these measures was used for the X-axis!

"Equality Not Growth" has no graph at all, so is not pertinent
to this discussion.

Therefore one is still left in the dark, despite Kate Pickett's
statement that "all our methods and statistics are on The Equality
Trust website ... They are available at: [the URL in question]".
If so, then I should be able to find out what scale was used
for "Income Inequality", and what values on that scale correspond
to "LOW" and "HIGH". But I couldn't. Nor for "Social Mobility",
nor for "Child Mobility".

Well, possibly they are there, but I have failed to find them
(wouldn't be the first time that sort of thing has happened)!
In which case, maybe some kind person will help me across the road.
But maybe they are not there, in which case Kate's statement
is not as helpful as it looks.

The only specific statement I could see about a score is near
the bottom of the page:

  "The Index of Health and Social Problems for the USA
   was created by taking the mean of the z-scores for
   each measure (averaged over the number of measures
   available for that particular state)"

The one statement that appears to promise to be helpful is right
at the bottom:

  "For details of measures, see Richard Wilkinson and
   Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level (Penguin).
   Buy the book ... "

But Ray's oberservations suggest that this may not help much!

Well, that's my attempt at a statistical approach to this discussion!
Ted.


On 17-Mar-09 09:40:26, Bland, M. wrote:
> Kate Pickett (an epidemiologist, and certainly not afraid of
> statistics) is a colleague, with an office just down the hall
> from me. I forwarded Ray's email to her. She has sent this reply:
> 
> The reason for the lack of statistical detail in our book is
> because it is a popular book, aimed at the layperson, and we
> found (somewhat to our surprise) that a lot of highly educated
> people who saw the book in manuscript didn't understand graphs,
> let alone statistics. We modelled the final charts in the book
> on those used by Putnam in "Bowling Alone", which people found
> easy to comprehend. For anybody interested in more detail, all
> our methods and statistics are on The Equality Trust website,
> and we gave a reference to this in the book.
> 
> They are available at:
> http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/why/evidence/methods
> 
> In addition, almost all of our findings have been previously
> published in peer-reviewed journals, again references to these
> are made in the book, and some, where copyright permits, can also
> be downloaded from the website.
> 
> I'm not on the list, but would be happy for you to post this reply
> from me. Far from being disdainful of statistics, we view them
> as a vital social microscope which allows us to see patterns that
> are not apparent to the naked eye. We live and breathe statistics,
> but sadly most people don't, and we wanted to communicate our
> message to the broadest readership possible.
> 
> Best, Kate.
> 
> There you have it!
> 
> Martin
> 
> Ray Thomas wrote:
>>
>> Why more equal societies almost always do better is the subtitle
>> of a gallant book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.
>>
>> In spite of the emphasis given by use of the word "equal" the
>> authors appear to be scornful of statistic. There are plenty of
>> charts in the book but most of them do not include statistics for
>> the scales used. 
>> Typically the scales are labelled "low" at the bottom of the vertical 
>> scale and high at the top end. Consistently the LH of the horizontal 
>> scale is labelled "low" and the Right hand of the horizontal scale
>> is label high. Typically the charts do not give the units of
>> measurement.
>>
>> Can anyone explain the apparent disdainful attitude to statistics
>> that seems to contradict the theme of the book?
>>
>> Ray Thomas
> -- 
> ***************************************************
> J. Martin Bland
> Prof. of Health Statistics
> Dept. of Health Sciences
> Seebohm Rowntree Building Area 2
> University of York
> Heslington
> York YO10 5DD
> 
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Phone: 01904 321334     Fax: 01904 321382 
> Web site: http://martinbland.co.uk/
> ***************************************************

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[log in to unmask]>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
Date: 17-Mar-09                                       Time: 12:20:14
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