Canadian study - unvaccinated more likely to have traffic accidents than vaccinated......

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

Have been pretty pre-occupied this year so not paid much attention to Covid other than checking if various hideous viruses over the last three months were Covid (none of the three were apparently).

But, I have seen reports about a Canadian study that suggests unvaccinated people are more like to be involved in traffic accidents..... 🤨

I hold my hands up and say I haven't read the paper but I have seen some commentary about it in various places, and it seems a little far fetched perhaps?

Am rubbish at linking on my phone but a quick Google should find reference to it for you.

But anyway, just wondered what the opinion is on this piece of scientific research?

I haven't read it either but it seems to make sense....people who struggle to weigh up risk/benefit are more likely to be unvaccinated and more likely to be bad drivers.

Correlation is not causation. As @NuffSaidSam said unvaccinated people are probably less risk-averse therefore more likely to have accidents.

fortune.com/well/2022/12/13/covid-unvaccinated-greater-risk-car-crash-traffic-accident-new-study-says-canada-government-records-pfizer-moderna/

They make it clear in the article that it's not likely to be a causative link. The people who had accidents wouldn't have avoided the accident by having the vaccine. Basically people who don't obey rules or whose lives and decision making is chaotic are both more likely to have an accident and less likely to have a vaccine. Those same people were always more likely to have a car accident irrespective of a pandemic.

There are probably lots of other things that those same people are more likely to do/have because of their personalities and decision making processes. At a guess they would be less likely to have made adequate pension provision, more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy, more likely to have an STD, less likely to have regular dental check ups etc.

It's like the large US study - examined all sorts of sociodemographic factors and how they were associated with vaccinated status.

By far the strongest predictor was choosing to vote for Trump in the last election.

Obviously (like road traffic accidents) not casusal, but it shows how there is a sociodemographic gradient when looking at people's attitudes to vaccination. Everything is associated and confounded really.

*vaccination

It’s a scientific analysis of behaviours rather than direct vaccine biological effects isn’t it?

The obvious explanation is that it's correlated with age, but clicking through to the original paper says that they did try correct for that, sex and health status, leaving only behaviour. Or a secret deep state cabal knocking off vaccine refuseniks and making it look like accidents of course, but that seems slow and inefficient [caveat, a deep state cabal are not actually knocking off vaccine refuseniks].

And they corrected for socio-economic status, which would be another obvious confounder - but that's a difficult one to correct for fully, so they might be overstating the effect.

from observation of the antivaxxers in my family they <generalisation alert> don't like to follow rules, which of course includes traffic regulations.
so, not surprised by that result.

Shaping up for another confrontation with those pesky truckers, I suppose. Our boy doesn’t like people who won’t do as they are told.

What an absolute utter load of nonsense! 🙄

Nicholas Cage Films are also responsible for people drowning in swimming pools

www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Makes complete sense. You make stupid decisions in one area of your life, you probably make them in several.

I wonder if there's also a correlation between 'people who don't understand evidence and statistics' and people who'll declare this correlation to be rubbish?

(Note: many spurious 'correlations' are along a time axis. They're amusing but irrelevant to this case).

All the anti-vax people I know are quite anti-rules in general. They would 100% be the ones more likely to drink drive, or not wear a seat belt, or ignore the speed limit, which I would guess all hugely increases the risk of having an accident

They also all have (hugely) inflated opinions of themselves- they know more about vaccine science than actual scientists, they know they would be fine if they caught covid, they have a stronger than average immune system etc
Which I can see directly translating into an inflated option of their driving ability - so driving faster, more recklessly etc because they believe they are better drivers than everyone else

There's a uk study that found people in comas are less stressed than people who aren't so..

It’s the continuing “othering” to force people to take a jab that may or may not benefit them

totally unvaxxed and very cautious. All the unvaxxed I know are the same. We are quite distrustful of being told what to do. I am generally very law abiding. Have suffered badly from poor medical care in the past though.

Sociodemographic analysis of vaccination is important, as it means public health bodies have any idea of the characteristics of who's choosing to not be vaccinated.(On a population level - this isn't about specific individuals). This is true for all public health measures like cancer screening, smear tests etc etc.

HOWEVER have read the paper linked and disagree with most of it (inception, analysis, conclusions drawn, public health messaging).

Oh please do expand. I gave it literally a 30 second once-over to check the size and that they were correcting for age, but would be interested to hear what you saw on a more detailed view.

So research needs to be useful, and I'm struggling to understand what the point of this analysis was.

We already know the relationship will not be causal, so what was the point of the work? To reduce RTA? To increase vaccination uptake? Or just to annoy people and get media attention?

Predicting who is most likely to be in an RTA is obviously important and useful for targeted intervention. But we already have robust predictors for this, which is how insurance rates etc are derived. A noisy confounded variable like vaccination status adds nothing to.

Understanding sociodemographic factors associated with vaccine hesitancy is also useful, which is why it seems ridiculous to focus on something like future likelihood of RTA, when you could conduct an exploratory analysis which would actually produce useful estimates. I.e., if a specific ethnic group is less likely to be vaccinated in pregancy, you could start doing outreach/PPI work to identify factors underlying this and if they could be addressed to increase uptake. This would have been a good use of this large dataset.

The authors conclude: "Physicians counseling patients who decline COVID vaccination could consider safety reminders to mitigate traffic risks". Bollocks. Firstly, population level estimates do not necessarily translate to the individual, and secondly all this is going to do is (understandably) irritate someone who hasn't been vaccinated.

Vaccination has become a very polarised issue, and all this paper does is serve to fan the flames without offering any tangible benefits to public health. Of course, my opinion only

^^ Not the PP, but thought I'd give my 2 pence @HowVeryLikeSibella

I agree that their conclusion:
"These data suggest that COVID vaccine hesitancy is associated with significant increased risks of a traffic crash. An awareness of these risks might help to encourage more COVID vaccination"
is totally batshit. Literally no one would be persuaded to take a Covid vaccination for that reason, and it wouldn't work anyway.

It's like saying that people who regularly attend the opera are less likely to have their homes repossessed and an awareness of this fact might encourage opera attendance.

Exactly. Obey and comply or we will freeze your bank accounts!

And this information is useful how ?

Maybe car insurance will be now be dearer for the un vaxed