[lit-ideas] Stats, again
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 14:09:47 EDT
Any comments from anyone? Particularly on the methodology?
Julie Krueger
_BBC NEWS | Middle East | Huge gaps in Iraq death estimates_
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6045112.stm)
Huge gaps in Iraq death estimates
Analysis
By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News website
The estimate that about 655,000 people have died in Iraq as a result of the
2003 invasion is such a large figure that it has led to two differing
interpretations.
Those who had faith in an earlier report from 2004 - also published in the
medical journal The Lancet - are now able to say that this larger survey
proves their point that Iraqi deaths have been far greater than publicly
reported,
and have now reached what the report calls "a humanitarian emergency".
Those who thought that the 2004 survey was exaggerated - it estimated 98,000
additional deaths up until September 2004 - think this one is even more wide
of the mark.
Les Roberts, one of the report's authors said: "It may not be extremely
precise, but it gets us into the ball park."
On the other hand, Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, which
tracks statistics in its Iraq Index, said: "I do not believe the new numbers.
I
think they're way off."
The Brooking Index, relying on the UN (which gets figures from the Iraqi
health ministry) and the Iraq Body Count (IBC), estimates the civilian death
toll at about 62,000.
The IBC, which counts the number of reported civilian deaths, puts them
between 43,850 and 48,693, though it adds that this is a baseline and that the
true figure could be much higher.
The IBC reaction to the Lancet report is awaited.
US President George W Bush rejected the estimate.
"I don't consider it a credible report," he said.
The US commander in Iraq, Gen George Casey, used a similar phrase.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett was more careful, and did not
reject the report outright. However, she questioned it.
"The report gives a figure which is orders of magnitude different from any
other source... nobody else has come up with figures on this scale... the
report has been criticised by the Iraqi government as unreasonable," she said.
Report methodology
The strength of the report, its authors argue, is in its tried and trusted
method.
It took a sample and then extrapolated broad results from that sample. This
is a technique used in public opinion polling and in marketing, for example,
in assessing television audiences.
In 2004, 33 clusters were chosen across the country with 30 households in
each cluster. These households contained 7,868 people. This time, 47 clusters
were chosen, with 12,801 people.
Insurgents are now staging daily attacks in Baghdad
The method was to question people about deaths in their household first in
the "pre-invasion" period and then in the "post-invasion" period leading up to
July 2006.
The difference would constitute what the survey calls "excess deaths".
The report says that there were 82 deaths pre-invasion and 547
post-invasion.
It then multiplied these figures up in relation to the Iraqi population of
27,139,584, and came up with an estimated 654,956 "excess" deaths, 2.5 % of
the population.
Some statistical caveats are entered. The lowest estimate of deaths is put
at 392,979 and the highest at 942,636. The lowest figure is still much bigger
than the other counts.
Of the "excess" deaths, 601,027 were attributed to the violence (mainly from
gunfire and mainly among men aged 15-59), the rest coming largely from
increased illness and disease.
The report concludes: "Our estimate of excess deaths is far higher than
those reported in Iraq through passive surveillance methods. This discrepancy
is
not unexpected. Data from passive surveillance are rarely complete, even in
stable circumstances, and are even less complete during conflict."
Critics of the report argue that something must have gone wrong in the
sampling.
Such criticism was made of the first Lancet report. Some said that a high
death rate in a small number of households could have hugely changed the e
xtrapolated totals.
In Slate magazine, Fred Kaplan argued of the first report: "The problem is,
ultimately, not with the scholars who conducted the study; they did the best
they could under the circumstances.
"The problem is the circumstances. It's hard to conduct reliable, random
surveys, and to extrapolate meaningful data from the results of those surveys
in
the chaotic, restrictive environment of war."
'Missing' dead
There is also the criticism that, crudely, the numbers of bodies being
discovered do not match the figures.
It is assumed that the 601,000 violent "excess" deaths between March 2003
and July 2006 (about 40 months) should produce an average of about 500 violent
deaths per day.
This is not going to be so all the time, given the spikes of violence, but
it is a rough criterion.
The latest figures from the Iraqi health ministry (reported by the
Associated Press news agency on 11 October) stated that 2,667 people were
killed in
Baghdad during September, 400 more than in August.
This gives an average of about 86 per day in the capital.
Baghdad is not the whole country of course, but AP reported the United
Nations as saying that in July and August, 6,599 people were killed across the
country, of which 5,106 were in Baghdad.
This suggests that Baghdad has by far the highest number of actual and
percentage dead.
So, if the current rate in Baghdad is about 86 and the countrywide figure
should be about 500 according to the Lancet report, where are the "missing"
dead?
The answer from the report's authors would be that the dead are there, but
have not been counted.
That supposes a huge failing by the Iraqi health ministry, a failing the
report did not hint at, because it said that death certificates were readily
available for most of the reported deaths in the households surveyed.
The international media is incapable of reporting overall deaths accurately,
given the difficulties of travelling around. The local media is a source but
cannot be relied on by itself.
We are left then with the estimate from this report and the various counts
by other groups.
The figures are now even more divergent than they were.
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