Nathan Mantel (February 16, 1919 – May 25, 2002) was an American
biostatistician
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 experimen ...
best known for his work with William Haenszel, which led to the
Mantel–Haenszel test and its associated estimate, the Mantel–Haenszel
odds ratio
An odds ratio (OR) is a statistic that quantifies the strength of the association between two events, A and B. The odds ratio is defined as the ratio of the odds of A in the presence of B and the odds of A in the absence of B, or equivalently (due ...
. The Mantel–Haenszel procedure and its extensions allow data from several sources or groups to be combined while avoiding
confounding
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 ...
.
He spent much of his career working for 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. ...
. During his career, he published over 380 academic papers. Later in his life, Mantel was known for defending the
tobacco industry
The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies who are engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any ...
against claims that
passive smoking
Passive smoking is the inhalation of tobacco smoke, called secondhand smoke (SHS), or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), by persons other than the intended "active" smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke enters an environment, causing its inhalat ...
was harmful.
See also
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Mantel test The Mantel test, named after Nathan Mantel, is a statistical test of the correlation between two matrices. The matrices must be of the same dimension; in most applications, they are matrices of interrelations between the same vectors of objects. Th ...
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Logrank test
The logrank test, or log-rank test, is a hypothesis test to compare the survival distributions of two samples. It is a nonparametric test and appropriate to use when the data are right skewed and censored (technically, the censoring must be non-in ...
References
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Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mantel, Nathan
1919 births
2002 deaths
American statisticians
Fellows of the American Statistical Association
Scientists from New York City
Mathematicians from New York (state)
Jewish scientists
Biostatisticians