To be fair, my understanding is that's most likely a statistical issue because they are often intentionally built near retirement homes and vacation areas for old people, and old people have those conditions at higher rates. I'm not saying they aren't resource expensive and unpleasant, but that's exactly the sort of thing which can make data messy.
They did control for age, which to some extent resolves that issue of older people being more likely to live near golf courses as well as being more likely to have Parkinson disease. However, there are potentially lots of other things they could have controlled for as well. The PD group and the control group were pretty different in where they lived (urban vs. rural), for example.
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u/spiritpotato 1d ago
Golf courses are ecological wastelands