What is missing from the recent Lancet study?

[ballz2wallz]

That's right folks, the one thing missing from that scientific publication that made headlines recently; science.

The group–associated with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health–employed cluster sampling for in-person interviews, which is the methodology that I and most researchers use in developing countries. Here, in the U.S., opinion surveys often use telephone polls, selecting individuals at random. But for a country lacking in telephone penetration, door-to-door interviews are required: Neighborhoods are selected at random, and then individuals are selected at random in “clusters” within each neighborhood for door-to-door interviews. Without cluster sampling, the expense and time associated with travel would make in-person interviewing virtually impossible.

However, the key to the validity of cluster sampling is to use enough cluster points. In their 2006 report, “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional sample survey,” the Johns Hopkins team says it used 47 cluster points for their sample of 1,849 interviews. This is astonishing: I wouldn’t survey a junior high school, no less an entire country, using only 47 cluster points.

Neither would anyone else. For its 2004 survey of Iraq, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) used 2,200 cluster points of 10 interviews each for a total sample of 21,688. True, interviews are expensive and not everyone has the U.N.’s bank account. However, even for a similarly sized sample, that is an extraordinarily small number of cluster points. A 2005 survey conducted by ABC News, Time magazine, the BBC, NHK and Der Spiegel used 135 cluster points with a sample size of 1,711–almost three times that of the Johns Hopkins team for 93% of the sample size.

What happens when you don’t use enough cluster points in a survey? You get crazy results when compared to a known quantity, or a survey with more cluster points. There was a perfect example of this two years ago. The UNDP’s survey, in April and May 2004, estimated between 18,000 and 29,000 Iraqi civilian deaths due to the war. This survey was conducted four months prior to another, earlier study by the Johns Hopkins team, which used 33 cluster points and estimated between 69,000 and 155,000 civilian deaths–four to five times as high as the UNDP survey, which used 66 times the cluster points.

The 2004 survey by the Johns Hopkins group was itself methodologically suspect–and the one they just published even more so.

[motivez]

I like how the link entitled "science" links to "opinion journal", funny coincidence.

655,000 War Dead?
A bogus study on Iraq casualties.

BY STEVEN E. MOORE

Originally Posted by Sourcewatch

Steven E. Moore is a political consultant and partner in the Sacramento-based firm Gorton Moore International. He advised L. Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

He is currently listed as the executive director of the website truthaboutiraq. According to his own bio on the site "for most of the last year, California political consultant Steven Moore advised Ambassador Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority on Iraqi public opinion." [1] (http://www.thetruthaboutiraq.org/about.htm)

So, a person who advised Paul Bremmber is suggesting the study is inaccurate? E-Gads! Say it aint so. It's so unexpected.

Well, he runs a website. Interesting. What's it about?

Originally Posted by Sourcewatch

TruthAboutIraq.org is a website established to promote a positive view of the U.S. military role in Iraq in contrast to that presented by most other media sources.[

The more I learn about this guy, the more* credible he becomes!

Now, I'm not saying he's wrong about his criticism of the survey. Just, he lacks credibility IMO when it comes to Iraq because he's gotten it so wrong before about "Iraqi Public Opinion", and he has a vested interest in promoting a positive view about what's happening in Iraq.

The bottom line is that to refute the study, you're going to need a better study done that finds different results. Methods are going to mean nothing to the majority of people. As it stands, it's the only scientific study done of the death count in Iraq.. there's not even one other one because it's nearly impossible to move around Iraq with how badly things are going.



















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