≡ Menu

More on Interpreting Statistics

Here’s more, now from The Economist.com, on the need to be careful when interpreting statistics — such as that infant-mortality rates in the United States are higher than in many countries much poorer than America.  A snippet:

Comparing infant mortality rates between countries is fraught with
uncertainty—after all, it’s hard to argue that every country’s figures
are reliable. But it’s still worth asking what more we can do to stop
babies from dying. Defined as death before one year of age, infant
mortality frequently gets framed in the United States as a problem of
insufficient health-care funding. In December, for example, a New York Times column
blamed it on the lack of a single-payer health insurer. However, a
closer look reveals the counterintuitive possibility that high infant
mortality in the United States might be the unintended side effect of increased spending on medical care.

Read the whole Economist.com post.

(HT: Liberty Alone)

Comments