Retrospectives: Edgar Sydenstricker: Household Equivalence Scales and the Causes of Pellagra
回顾经济学家埃德加·西登斯特里克在20世纪初研究糙皮病时，如何通过家庭等值量表调整收入，发现该病与等值化家庭收入负相关，并指出动物蛋白缺乏是病因。
In the early part of the 20 th century the disease pellagra, now almost unknown, affected and killed thousands of people in the United States. Some claimed it was an infection, while others maintained it was due to a dietary deficiency. The economist Edgar Sydenstricker (1881-1936), who was a member of a US Public Health Service team examining the disease, argued it was critical to understand how pellagra varied by levels of income. Collecting survey data, he realized equivalence scales were needed to adjust household incomes. His research demonstrated that there was a strong negative correlation between the incidence of pellagra and equivalized household income. Further analysis of the dietary differences between households suggested that a dietary deficiency associated to a restricted availability of animal protein food was the cause of pellagra. This was confirmed more than a decade later when a deficiency of vitamin B-3 was identified as the cause.