Jerome Cornfield (1912–1979) was an American

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

. He is best known for his work in

biostatistics Biostatistics (also known as biometry) are the development and application of statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experime ...

, but his early work was in

economic statistics Economic statistics is a topic in applied statistics and applied economics that concerns the collection, processing, compilation, dissemination, and analysis of economic data. It is closely related to business statistics and econometrics. It is ...

and he was also an early contributor to the theory of

Bayesian inference Bayesian inference is a method of statistical inference in which Bayes' theorem is used to update the probability for a hypothesis as more evidence or information becomes available. Bayesian inference is an important technique in statistics, a ...

. He played a role in the early development of

input-output analysis In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals ...

and

linear programming Linear programming (LP), also called linear optimization, is a method to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a mathematical model whose requirements are represented by linear function#As a polynomial function, li ...

. Cornfield played a crucial role in establishing the causal link between smoking and incidence of lung cancer. He introduced the

Rare disease assumption The rare disease assumption is a mathematical assumption in epidemiologic case-control studies where the hypothesis tests the association between an exposure and a disease. It is assumed that, if the prevalence of the disease is low, then the odds ...

and the "Cornfield condition" that allows one to assess whether an unmeasured (binary)

confounder In statistics, a confounder (also confounding variable, confounding factor, extraneous determinant or lurking variable) is a variable that influences both the dependent variable and independent variable, causing a spurious association. Con ...

can explain away the observed relative risk due to some exposure like smoking. He was born on October 30, 1912, in

The Bronx, New York City The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New York ...

. He graduated from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

in 1933 and was briefly a graduate student at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He also studied statistics and mathematics at the Graduate School of the US Department of Agriculture while employed by the

Bureau of Labor Statistics The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of t ...

, where he remained until 1947. He later worked at the

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

, the Department of Biostatistics at

Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is the public health graduate school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. As the second independent, degree-granting institution for research in epi ...

, the

National Heart Institute The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is the third largest Institute of the National Institutes of Health, located in Bethesda, Maryland, United States. It is tasked with allocating about $3.6 billion in FY 2020 in tax revenue to ...

, the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

, and

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

. In 1951 he was elected as a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...

.View/Search Fellows of the ASA
, accessed 2016-07-23. He was the R. A. Fisher Lecturer in 1973 and

President of the American Statistical Association The president of the American Statistical Association is the head of the American Statistical Association (ASA). According to the association's bylaws, the president is an officer, and a member of the board of directors and of the executive commit ...

in 1974. Cornfield married Ruth Bittler in 1937. They had two daughters, Ann and Ellen. He died on September 17, 1979, in

Great Falls, Virginia Great Falls is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population as of the 2010 census was 15,427, an increase of 80.5% from the 2000 census. History Colonial farm settlements began to form in the area a ...

References

* *
Jerome Cornfield Papers: Historical Note
Special Collections Department,

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

.
Jerome Cornfield: Chair 1958–1960
Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Compiled by Milo Schield, Editor of www.StatLit.org 1912 births 1979 deaths American statisticians Fellows of the American Statistical Association Presidents of the American Statistical Association University of Pittsburgh faculty 20th-century American mathematicians Mathematicians from New York (state) Scientists from the Bronx {{US-statistician-stub