Another reason to have representation in science.
Doubt that her interest in infant nutrition and breast cancer was shared by the 23 dudes in the picture.
A century ago, Janet Lane-Claypon laid the groundwork for several methods we still use in public health and epidemiology today. (Photo below from Lister Institute in 1907.)
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When Lane-Claypon compared average weights of the two groups of babies early in life, where less data were available, she used statistical testing to see if the difference was real or just random.
This made her one of the first to apply the newly developed Student's t-test in biomedical research.
This is amazing. Thanks for sharing. I was just commenting to my partner that took an undergraduate class in the history of epi, which completely glossed over developments from this era and implied these principles were much younger than they actually are.
Comments
Doubt that her interest in infant nutrition and breast cancer was shared by the 23 dudes in the picture.
Diverse viewpoints benefit us ALL.
Let's look at what she pioneered...
Thank you.
Sound familiar?
That was one of the first-ever uses of a retrospective cohort study — a design still central to health research.
She thought carefully about other variables — like birth weight and socioeconomic status — that could bias her results.
In other words, she was identifying confounding long before it became a formal part of epidemiological thinking.
This made her one of the first to apply the newly developed Student's t-test in biomedical research.
She compared women with breast cancer to those without, matching them by age and other characteristics.
This was one of earliest examples of a case-control study.
- Retrospective cohort design
- Awareness of confounding
- Use of the t-test
- Case-control methods