Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

When faced with the incomprehensible, the average American frequently reaches for the nearest statistic. Computers help promote this national mania by providing an easy way to churn out sometimes dubious quantifications. Last week a Joint Economic Committee study of the effects of the economy on health showed how easily pseudostatistical precision can be taken for fact.

The author of the report, M. Harvey Brenner of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, linked the sharp rise in unem ployment during the 1973-74 recession to a subsequent 2.8% rise hi deaths from heart attacks. Brenner found that a 3% decline in per capita income during the recession later caused 46,000 deaths from heart disease. Indeed, increased business failures were responsible for even more heart-disease fatalities -- 95,680, to be exact.

Brenner's idea is that the hard times and stress of recession eventually result in heart trouble. He conceded that the error in his study may be 10% to 15%, but nonetheless maintained that the figures provide "considerable statistical support for the hy pothesis that economic recession is related to an adverse change in national health and well-being." Perhaps the next step should be to put notices on economic forecasts: WARNING. RECESSIONS

MAY BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH.