Alzheimer’s and Taxi Drivers: Hold on a Minute

In 2024 I blogged about a study that found the lowest incidence of Alzheimer’s-related mortality among ambulance and taxi drivers. At the time I noted that the study had a bunch of caveats and was reluctant to draw conclusions; as I wrote, “this is a long, long way from being able to say, for example, that driving a taxi prevents Alzheimer’s.” Nevertheless, last week The Conversation published a piece by engineering professor Hatim Sharif, who has no qualms drawing those conclusions from that 2024 study. Said piece is making the usual rounds, but grains of salt by the truckload are advised. As one commenter on MetaFilter says, “the causal claim is doing more work than the data can support.”