From the table there is no evidence for an association between back pain and
stroke or other cardiovascular disease among the younger men. In older men,
those with back pain have lower risks than those without back pain for all
causes of death. In addition, no associations were observed among women. Thus
it seems likely that the observed association among younger men is a spurious
significant result which has arisen because of multiple testing (Intro 9.10). If you calculate the actual numbers of
death from the rates given in the table, and from these assemble a table for
all men, you will find that there is a very slight excess of deaths in each
category for men without a history of back pain!
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Last updated: 8 April, 2004.