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Post by omaha on Nov 4, 2009 9:09:31 GMT -5
John, interesting story, but beside the point. What countries report to the WHO is based on the definition established by the WHO. What we might see are two different mortality rates for a Eurpoean country. Their own and the what WHO says they have. I have a story about that. A few years ago, I worked on a project in law enforcement that had to do with crime reporting. As with anything that is simple on the surface ("How many murders were there in Omaha last year?"), there are all kids of definitional complexities under the surface. What is a murder? What is a burglary? Etc, etc, etc. Turns out there are multiple systems for recording those things: UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting), NIBRS (National Incident Based Reporting System) are the two biggies. And they are pretty much incompatible. And then there are local and state laws that actually define what is and what is not a crime, and those laws do not necessarily sync up with either UCR or NIBRS. How are crime stats produced? It all starts with police reports. In Omaha, a standard incident report is based on a bastardized version of UCR. But it is bastardized because the cops need to define certain elements of certain crimes in order to establish a case in court. But the Feds want you to report based on NIBRS. But the data doesn't exist in that form, and (this is the most important part) it is impossible to mechanically convert UCR reports into NIBRS format. It is hand work: Someone has to literally wade through certain reports and tease out specific information (often contained only in the reporting officer's written narrative) to establish the elements of a particular crime. And (just like in health care), that process is politically charged. The Mayor has a political incentive to see crime being reduced on his watch. And the Chief of Police knows that. Now, in theory, the people who actually crunch the numbers are politically independent, and here in Omaha I know them personally. They are good people and do a good job. But that doesn't mean there aren't countless moments where judgement calls need to be made, and in those cases, human nature is what human nature is. The bottom line for me: I know from first hand experience in this area the difficulties in this sort of data collection. As a result, I am very skeptical of data reported on a global scale: Each country no doubt has its own set of reporting standards, its own set of coding standards, its own data structures. Someone no doubt is working to integrate that data together, but unless you really know the ins and outs of that conversion process, you don't really know what the data is telling you. John's example from Europe seems to go precisely to why this is such a hard thing. Unless everyone involved, at the source, uses the same reporting standards and uses them consistently (which will never happen), the numbers will always be suspect.
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Post by millring on Nov 4, 2009 10:57:54 GMT -5
John, interesting story, but beside the point. What countries report to the WHO is based on the definition established by the WHO. What we might see are two different mortality rates for a Eurpoean country. Their own and the what WHO says they have. That's just not so. US News & World Report did a story on the inequitable tabulation. My anecdote just confirms it.
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Post by millring on Nov 4, 2009 11:06:55 GMT -5
John, interesting story, but beside the point. What countries report to the WHO is based on the definition established by the WHO. What we might see are two different mortality rates for a Eurpoean country. Their own and the what WHO says they have. I have a story about that. A few years ago, I worked on a project in law enforcement that had to do with crime reporting. As with anything that is simple on the surface ("How many murders were there in Omaha last year?"), there are all kids of definitional complexities under the surface. What is a murder? What is a burglary? Etc, etc, etc. Turns out there are multiple systems for recording those things: UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting), NIBRS (National Incident Based Reporting System) are the two biggies. And they are pretty much incompatible. And then there are local and state laws that actually define what is and what is not a crime, and those laws do not necessarily sync up with either UCR or NIBRS. How are crime stats produced? It all starts with police reports. In Omaha, a standard incident report is based on a bastardized version of UCR. But it is bastardized because the cops need to define certain elements of certain crimes in order to establish a case in court. But the Feds want you to report based on NIBRS. But the data doesn't exist in that form, and (this is the most important part) it is impossible to mechanically convert UCR reports into NIBRS format. It is hand work: Someone has to literally wade through certain reports and tease out specific information (often contained only in the reporting officer's written narrative) to establish the elements of a particular crime. And (just like in health care), that process is politically charged. The Mayor has a political incentive to see crime being reduced on his watch. And the Chief of Police knows that. Now, in theory, the people who actually crunch the numbers are politically independent, and here in Omaha I know them personally. They are good people and do a good job. But that doesn't mean there aren't countless moments where judgement calls need to be made, and in those cases, human nature is what human nature is. The bottom line for me: I know from first hand experience in this area the difficulties in this sort of data collection. As a result, I am very skeptical of data reported on a global scale: Each country no doubt has its own set of reporting standards, its own set of coding standards, its own data structures. Someone no doubt is working to integrate that data together, but unless you really know the ins and outs of that conversion process, you don't really know what the data is telling you. John's example from Europe seems to go precisely to why this is such a hard thing. Unless everyone involved, at the source, uses the same reporting standards and uses them consistently (which will never happen), the numbers will always be suspect. Same inequitable tabulation happens with world hunger. The US includes children who are afraid they might at some point go hungry as "starving". And those tabulations go into the international tabulations and are compared as if apples to apples with third world starvation.
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Post by omaha on Nov 4, 2009 11:41:08 GMT -5
As coincidence would have it, my buddy in crime analysis called this morning.
He reminded me of one of the little quirks in the system: Under Nebraska law, a if you take something from an open garage, it is called a "theft". Under UCR, that is considered a "burglary". Under Nebraska law, its only a burglary if the perpetrator breaks into the garage.
I bet there are a brazillion little examples like that lurking in the world health care numbers too.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Nov 4, 2009 12:00:40 GMT -5
John, interesting story, but beside the point. What countries report to the WHO is based on the definition established by the WHO. What we might see are two different mortality rates for a Eurpoean country. Their own and the what WHO says they have. That's just not so. US News & World Report did a story on the inequitable tabulation. My anecdote just confirms it. If US News ran that story I can't find it. What I did find was the following... health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2008/10/15/us-ranks-29th-in-infant-mortality.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a41:g2:r10:c0.038677:b20195651:z0&s_cid=loomia:health-buzz-infant-mortality-and-other-health-newsU.S. Ranks 29th in Infant MortalityRate is 50% higher than national goals, CDC says Posted October 15, 2008 WEDNESDAY, Oct. 15 (HealthDay News) -- With nearly seven infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2004, the United States ranked 29th in the world in infant mortality. This compared to 27th in 2000, 23rd in 1990 and 12th in 1960. That grim statistical picture is contained in a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. In 2004, the latest year that data are available for all countries, infant death rates were generally lowest (below 3.5 per 1,000 births) in certain Scandinavian countries (Finland, Norway and Sweden) and East Asian countries (Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore). There were 22 countries with infant death rates below 5.0 per 1,000. The U.S. infant death rate didn't decline from 2000 to 2005, but preliminary data for 2006 suggest a 2 percent decline between 2005 and 2006, the report said. Among the other findings in the report: The current U.S. infant death rate is about 50 percent higher than the national goal of 4.5 per 1,000 live births. Increases in preterm birth and preterm-related deaths greatly contributed to the lack of decline in the U.S. infant death rate from 2000 to 2005. In 2005, the infant death rate among non-Hispanic black women was 2.4 times higher than the rate among non-Hispanic white women -- 13.63 per 1,000 vs. 5.76 per 1,000. Infant death rates were also higher among Puerto Rican women (8.30 per 1,000) and American Indian women (8.06 per 1,000). The findings, published in the Data Brief Recent Trends in Infant Mortality in the United States, were based on statistics in the Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set and Preliminary Mortality Data File, collected through the National Vital Statistics System. ---- or there is this from USNews health.usnews.com/articles/health/2008/10/16/health-buzz-infant-mortality-and-other-health-news.htmlU.S. Infant Mortality Rate Remains HighPosted October 16, 2008 The U.S. infant mortality rate seems to be dropping, although the country still ranks 29th in the world, tied with Poland and Slovakia. The main reason for that poor showing is the rise in premature births, Deborah Kotz reports. From 2000 to 2005, the share of preterm births increased 9 percent, to 12.7 percent. Babies born at 34 to 36 weeks were three times as likely to die as were full-term babies, who are born at 37 to 41 weeks of gestation. Kotz also reports that the U.S. maternal mortality rate in childbirth is surprisingly high. =========== Of course these stories were a year ago when people still had no political reason to not trust those figures.
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Post by millring on Nov 4, 2009 13:39:16 GMT -5
Of course these stories were a year ago when people still had no political reason to not trust those figures. That has never been the case.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Nov 4, 2009 14:28:03 GMT -5
Same sort of reason nobody gave global warming a second thought when it was first proposed in 1896. Back then it was called the 'greenhouse effect' and everyone agreed with it. Research in the 1930's supported the idea. More research in the 1960's backed it up even more. It wasn't until someone suggested that someone DO SOMETHING about it that there was a sudden explosion of people saying it was bunk. This started in the late 1970's and early 1980's after fingers were pointed at companies to cut back on greenhouse gas emmision. "No" wasn't a good enough answer so those companies (and the politicians they owned) spent lots of money and face time to debunk the idea.
Same thing is going on in Healthcare. For decades nobody has given a second thought about the accuracy of the healthcare numbers being reported by vavious world agencies. Nobody. Not even the CIA. But when those numbers were used to support healthcare reform.... oh my. Time to crank out the "debunk" machine and cut the legs out from under what was previously not even questioned by the very people that are now blasting it.
Politics? Maybe not. Economics? Absolutely.
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Post by Ann T on Nov 4, 2009 14:46:16 GMT -5
It's not surprising that no one cared about WHO numbers in the 1980's, and to extrapolate some kind of ulterior motive to its current challenge is a bit of a stretch. Frankly, spending time and effort trying to correct a bunch of statistics published by some international source, as long as it has no consequence other than being the equivalent of saying that the USA's mom wears army boots, seems a waste of time and effort when there are so many other pressing issues that take up our limited 24 hour days. But when someone trots out a bunch of erroneous statistics and then tries to use it to justify doing something to you, then it rises up in priority for being challenged/corrected.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Nov 4, 2009 15:02:53 GMT -5
Probably explains why our own government quoted those numbers for decades.
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Post by millring on Nov 4, 2009 15:24:47 GMT -5
You mean they didn't have occasion or see the need to correct them? They've been questioned all along. Just not by the people in government who matter (to the right people).
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