Wednesday, October 18, 2006

The Lancet Report

Just in case you want to know why the current Lancet Report is completely flawed in its methodology, read this. Steven Moore deconstructs the flawed statistical metholodogy employed by the researchers.

It comes down to two factors, far too few cluster points for its sample and no comparison of the statistical analysis from their report to a known demographic instrument, such as a census. And don't forget, that heirs to the British system, before the invasion, the Iraqis kept meticulous records.

In fact, they're indicted by their own appendix. Bear in mind, they used 48 cluster points for a population of 27 million:
Appendix A of the Johns Hopkins survey, for example, cites several other studies of mortality in war zones, and uses the citations to validate the group's use of cluster sampling. One study is by the International Rescue Committee in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which used 750 cluster points. Harvard's School of Public Health, in a 1992 survey of Iraq, used 271 cluster points. Another study in Kosovo cites the use of 50 cluster points, but this was for a population of just 1.6 million, compared to Iraq's 27 million.

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