Doping Study 29% in World Champs

[dbirds]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/sport ... ed=1&_r=1&

Just taking a guess by events, I would guess 40% sprinters, 25% distance, 40% throwers and 10% hurdlers, jumpers and multis. Any more educated guesses?

[Marlow]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

29 percent of the athletes at the 2011 world championships and 45 percent of the athletes at the 2011 Pan-Arab Games said in anonymous surveys that they had doped in the past year.
By contrast, less than 2 percent of drug tests examined by WADA laboratories in 2010 were positive.

So how do we close the gap? I thought the Blood Passport was supposed to be effective. Isn't that the way to go?

[croflash]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/sports/research-finds-wide-doping-study-withheld.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&

Just taking a guess by events, I would guess 40% sprinters, 25% distance, 40% throwers and 10% hurdlers, jumpers and multis. Any more educated guesses?

My guess is that the actual number is higher than "roughly 29 percent".

[JumboElliott]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

I'm fairly certain that the number of people using banned substance was significantly under-reported. People who are doing illegal things tend not to be very trusting of things like "anonymous" studies.

At this point, it's clear that the "fight" against doping is a losing battle, and the focus should be shifted to the health of athletes.

[dbirds]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

Not saying it's a winnable battle but not 100% a losing one either...organizations dont put enough $ into it. Baseball and football barely spend $ and they catch a decent amount of athletes. If $ was ramped up and a 3rd party used (USADA, WADA), drug usage would go down!

[toyracer]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

"Athletes at the events answered questions on tablet computers and were asked initially to think of a birthday, either their own or that of someone close to them. Then, depending on the date of the birthday, they were instructed to answer one of two questions that appeared on the same screen: one asked if the birthday fell sometime between January and June, and the other asked, “Have you knowingly violated anti-doping regulations by using a prohibited substance or method in the past 12 months?”

The study was designed this way, the researchers said, so only the athlete knew which of the two questions he or she was answering. Then, using statistical analysis, the researchers could estimate how many of the athletes admitted to doping.

The researchers noted that not every athlete participated, and those who did could have lied on the questionnaire, or chosen to answer the birthday question. They concluded that their results, which found that nearly a third of the athletes at the world championships and nearly half at the Pan-Arab Games had doped in the past year, probably underestimated the reality."

So athletes could have answered the birthday question and it would have counted as a yes for doping? This seems to indicate that the researchers had no way of knowing which question was being answered. What if the majority of athletes simply answered the birthday question?

Exactly how scientific a method is this?

[JumboElliott]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

I think if they answered yes to the question about the birthdays, the results got thrown in the trash. It would be interesting to see the numbers who responded to that question compared to those who answered the one about doping. I would venture to guess that the former got more responses.

[26mi235]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

This methodology was developed with AIDS inquiries. My impression/memory was that the technique was very useful and quite accurate. It was a clever notion whoever first put it forward.

Given that this is how they posed the question, the 29% figure is probably not particularly biased, which has been found in prior studies with methodology. I will ask my wife when she gets as she knows this stuff better than I do.

[wineturtle]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

We have a lot of folks on the board who use statistics daily and if memory serves even a couple who are involved in supply-side statistical analysis.
No idea how valid this is or how the rest of the world breaks down but just one thing that the 'statistical analysis' must have taken into account.
http://www.babycenter.com/0_surprising- ... 1372273.bc


The biggest month

In 2010 more newborns arrived in September than in any other month. The second, third, and fourth most popular birthday months were August, June, and July, in that order.

[maroon]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

I think if they answered yes to the question about the birthdays, the results got thrown in the trash. It would be interesting to see the numbers who responded to that question compared to those who answered the one about doping. I would venture to guess that the former got more responses.

huh? if only the athlete knows which question is being answered then how do the testers know which "yes" is in response to the birthday question? and why would they need a statistical analysis if they could then simply count up the number of "yes"'s in response to the drug question?

they must have aggregated data on the athlete birthdays (given to them by iaaf) and they will know the number of yes answers if that was the only question (not sure how to factor in the birthday of some close to the athletes, but maybe there is another study showing that most people pick their own birthday) and assuming full participation. and then they perform their analysis on the actual number of "yes" answers which is compared to the predicted number for birthday only questions. obviously much more sophisticated and nuanced than that, but i can't think of another explanation.

[maroon]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

thanks wine turtle. that makes better sense than my explanation and would cover the birthday of the athlete and his/her loved one.

[wineturtle]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

I have always thought the closer you get to world class the higher the % of users. I have mentioned that I think from 40-60% of vey top athletes on the 'big stage' have broken the rules or the spirit of the rules (did something like take a drug not yet on the banned list-designer drugs - say they had x condition to get a TUE) in some way.


BUT There are lies, damned lies and then we have statistics...
A clean athlete would gain an advantage to answer yes I doped. We would like to believe the more yes answers reported would prompted a more beefed up program of detection- and a better chance for a clean athlete to get to the 'big stage' and maybe actually earn a few bucks as a professional.

We are dealing with an iceberg and I'm pretty sure I learned about the there is more under the water than above it thing in third grade.

[gh]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/sports/research-finds-wide-doping-study-withheld.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&

Just taking a guess by events, I would guess 40% sprinters, 25% distance, 40% throwers and 10% hurdlers, jumpers and multis. Any more educated guesses?

??? Why on earth would sprinters be higher than any other runners? Different drugs perhaps, but no less incentive/results for going the PED route.

[mcgato]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

I am a statistician, but I have no experience with that sort of survey. As I see it, they go with this approach:
Q1: give a birthday. Roughly 50% will give a date in the first 6 months of the year.
Q2: a choice to verify Q1, or answer the doping Q.

At this point it breaks down to 4 groups.
G1: Picked a first half birthday, and are clean. They can honestly answer either Q2.
G2: Picked a first half birthday, and are not clean. They will most likely answer the birthday part of Q2, but some will admit to the drug part of Q2.
G3: Picked a second half birthday, and are clean. They will most likely answer the drug part of Q2.
G4: Picked a second half birthday, and are not clean. They will probably lie about the drug part of Q2, though some will probably admit to the drug part of Q2.

Even if the Q1 answers are not 50-50, the differentials in the other groups could give a good estimate of the percent that is not clean. A handful will probably just answer incorrectly to screw up the survey, but that should be distributed fairly evenly. I'd actually like to read about the stats behind the analysis. Might have to actually read it in depth.

[Dave]

Re: Doping Study 29% in World Champs

I'm fairly certain that the number of people using banned substance was significantly under-reported. People who are doing illegal things tend not to be very trusting of things like "anonymous" studies.

At this point, it's clear that the "fight" against doping is a losing battle, and the focus should be shifted to the health of athletes.

Hear hear!