The Scientific Value of Testing Predictive Performance
This week’s NY Times article Risk Calculator for Cholesterol Appears Flawed and CNN article Does calculator overstate heart attack risk? illustrate the power of evaluating the predictive performance of a model for purposes of validating the underlying theory. The NYT article describes findings by two Harvard Medical School professors, Ridker and Cook, about extreme over-estimation of the 10-year risk of a heart-attack or stroke when using a calculator released by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology. “According to the new guidelines, if a person’s risk is above 7.5%, he or she should be put on a statin.” (CNN … Continue reading The Scientific Value of Testing Predictive Performance