Re: Ecological Fallacy?

[Steve Costigan <costigan@lanl.gov>]

Question on the "ecological fallacy" and oft-mentioned work of Cohen. I
recall seeing that the frequency distribution for radon concentration in
homes is typically a log-normal distribution. If this is correct, exactly
what "average" are we talking about---the mean for a log-normal
distribution or simply an average of all the numbers? Was this issue
specifically addressed? Obviously, if you have a log-normal distribution
and you take a mathematical average you can get a number that is much
larger than is representative of the data because a small number of large
values skew the result. Thanks.

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Steve Costigan, CHP
ESH-1 Health Physics Operations
Los Alamos National Laboratory   
PO Box 1663 MS J519	       
Los Alamos, NM  87545		phone: 505-667-0066
fax:   505-667-2964	e-mail: costigan@lanl.gov
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