Pareto's Principle and Long-Tailed Distribution Curves

In June, 2014, my book, entitled Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs: Keys to Understanding and Treating the Common Diseases was published by Elsevier. The book builds the argument that our best chance of curing the common diseases will come from studying and curing the rare diseases. The book has an extensive glossary, that explains the meaning and relevance of medical terms appearing throughout the chapters. The glossary can be read as a stand-along document. Here is an example of one term, "Pareto's Principle", excerpted from the glossary.Pareto’s principle - Also known as the 80/20 rule, Pareto’s principle holds that a small number of items account for the vast majority of observations. For example, a small number of rich people account for the majority of wealth. Just two countries, India plus China, account for 37% of the world population. Within most countries, a small number of provinces or geographic areas contain the majority of the population of a country (e.g., east and west coastlines of the U.S.). A small number of books, compared with the total number of published books, account for the majority of book sales. Likewise, a small number of diseases account for the bulk of human morbidity and mortality. For example, two common types of cancer, basal cell carcinoma of skin and squamous cell carcinoma of skin, account for about 1 million new cases of cancer each year in the U.S. This is approximately the sum total for all other types of cancer combined. We see ...
Source: Specified Life - Category: Pathologists Tags: 80/20 rule common disease data analysis glossary orphan disease orphan drugs rare disease statistics Source Type: blogs