Jousting with the Lancet: Pajamas Media Interviews Professor Gilbert Burnham
sam2 said:
“Neil Johnson and Sean Gourley, physicists at Oxford University in the U.K. who have been analyzing Iraqi casualty data for a separate study, also question whether the sample is representative. The paper indicates that the survey team avoided small back alleys for safety reasons. But this could bias the data because deaths from car bombs, street-market explosions, and shootings from vehicles should be more likely on larger streets, says Johnson.”
I found it strange that Johnson and Gourley didn’t mention another bias which acts in the opposite direction, ‘residential street bias’. According to Burnham et. al., all interviews were restricted to residential street households. If main streets are indeed more dangerous then this would lead to a bias in the opposite direction and perhaps even lead to an overall underestimate of the number of deaths.
