Psychosomatic Medicine Faster Service from Outside North America
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Smith, G.
Right arrow Articles by Freedland, K. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Smith, G.
Right arrow Articles by Freedland, K. E.
Psychosomatic Medicine 66:974 (2004)
© 2004 American Psychosomatic Society

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

POSTPONING DEATH: ADDITIONAL STUDIES ON MORTALITY RATES AND SYMBOLICALLY MEANINGFUL DATES

Gary Smith, PhD

Department of Economics, Pomona College, Claremont, CA

Skala and Freeland’s review (1) of research regarding mortality rates around symbolically meaningful occasions overlooked four relevant papers. Skala and Freedland observe that Phillips’ (2) study of the deaths of famous Americans near their birthdays counts all deaths that occurred in the birth month as having occurred after the birthday. Royer and Smith (3) find that the results hinge on this assumption. For example, a reexamination of Phillips’ most statistically persuasive data, the deceased in Four Hundred Notable Americans, found that of the 26 people who died during their birth months, 13 died before their birthdays, one died on his birthday, and 12 died after their birthdays.

Phillips et al. (4) report that Chinese and Japanese Americans believe the number 4 is unlucky and have abnormally high cardiac mortality on the fourth day of the month. Smith (5) shows that this conclusion is based on the omission of several types of heart disease that have the opposite pattern. The elevated mortality in Phillips’ pruned subset is not present in independent presample and postsample data. Also, there are no statistically persuasive patterns in suicides or accidental deaths or on other lucky or unlucky days. Similarly, Panesar et al. (6) are unable to replicate Phillips’ findings using independent data for Hong Kong Chinese people.

Phillips et al. (7) report that Chinese Americans are particularly vulnerable to diseases that Chinese astrology and traditional Chinese medicine associate with their birth years. In my own unpublished reexamination of the data, I found that many diseases were inexplicably excluded from the original study; some diseases that were included have ambiguous links to birth years and the statistical tests were indirect. A more complete statistical analysis and independent data do not replicate the original results.

REFERENCES

  1. Skala JA, Freedland KE. Death takes a raincheck. Psychosom Med 2004; 66: 383–6.
  2. Phillips DP. Deathday and birthday: an unexpected connection. In: Tanur JM, ed. Statistics: A Guide to the Unknown. San Francisco: Holden-Day; 1972: 52–65.
  3. Royer H, Smith G. Can the famous really postpone death? Soc Biol 1998; 45: 302–5.[Medline]
  4. Phillips DP, Liu GC, Kwok K, et al. The Hound of the Baskervilles effect: natural experiment on the influence of psychological stress on timing of death. BMJ 2001; 323: 1443–6.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  5. Smith G. Scared to death? BMJ 2002; 325: 1442–3.[Free Full Text]
  6. Panesar NS, Chan NCY, Li SN, et al. Is four a deadly number for the Chinese? Med J Aust 2003; 179: 656–8.[Medline]
  7. Phillips DP, Ruth TE, Wagner LM. Psychology and survival. Lancet 1993; 342: 1142–5.[CrossRef][Medline]

Response

Judith A. Skala, RN, PhD and Kenneth E. Freedland, PhD

Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO

We regret that these four relevant papers were omitted from our review and we thank Dr. Smith for bringing them to our attention. We overlooked these papers despite having conducted numerous MeSH, keyword, title, and textword searches of the Medline and PsycINFO databases, and having identified additional articles from the reference lists of original reports, reviews, and editorials. Fortunately, all of these papers provide further support for the review’s conclusions.





This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Smith, G.
Right arrow Articles by Freedland, K. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Smith, G.
Right arrow Articles by Freedland, K. E.

HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS