1. Smoking and Cancers: Case-Robust Analysis of a Classic Data Set.
- Author
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Bentler, Peter M., Satorra, Albert, and Ke-Hai Yuan
- Subjects
STRUCTURAL equation modeling ,PARAMETER estimation ,FACTOR analysis ,SMOKING ,CANCER - Abstract
A typical structural equation model is intended to reproduce the means, variances, and correlations or covariances among a set of variables based on parameter estimates of a highly restricted model. It is not widely appreciated that the sample statistics being modeled can be quite sensitive to outliers and influential observations, leading to bias in model parameter estimates. A classic public epidemiological data set on the relation between cigarette purchases and rates of 4 types of cancer among states in the United States is studied with case-weighting methods that reduce the influence of a few cases on the overall results. The results support and extend the original conclusions; the standardized effect of smoking on a factor underlying deaths from bladder and lung cancer is .79. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009
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