Aylin's claim that Meacock conclusions are "deeply flawed" is deeply flawed
Aylin and colleagues have written a public google docs document to challenge the conclusions of a peer-reviewed study by Meacock and colleagues. The latter, titled “Higher mortality rates amongst emergency patients admitted to hospital at weekends reflect a lower probability of admission”, seemed to show that the “week-end effect” was an illusion. Although a slightly higher proportion of patients admitted at week-ends die within 30 days, this is not the case if one considers all patients attending A&E. Looking at attendances, the proportion of people who die does not vary between week-end and weekday. The obvious interpretation is that the patients who are admitted at week-ends are the ones who are more likely to die, presumably because they are more unwell to start with. Aylin’s grounds for saying that the conclusions are “deeply flawed” rest on a rather subtle statistical point which is that if one looks at the “risk adjusted relative risk” for direct admissions then it is hig