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Monday, January 5, 2009

Is alcohol consumption good for you? Results from the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey
Addiction Research & Theory, Volume 16, Issue 6 December 2008 , pages 553 - 563
Data from the Statistics Canada 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey is used to test the hypothesis that classification errors of the type noted by Fillmore et al. (2006) could invalidate the statistical results on the effects of alcohol consumption on self-rated health and the incidence of heart disease and diabetes.
The results obtained in this study show that the beneficial effects of moderate alcohol use that so many studies have found, still appear even when the correct classification of alcohol use is employed.
However, parameter biases and inferential errors can occur when researchers fail to distinguish between former drinkers and never drinkers within the non-drinking group.
Request Reprint E-Mail: jamesm@vax2.concordia.ca
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