I did some reserch on this number and found a couple of difficulties with it. For starters the number relates to 2003, not last year. But that isn't my major issue with the number. I take this from a BBC story that quotes the statistic:
A spokeswoman for Help the Aged warned that many older people would not live through the cold snap.
She said bad housing and insufficient heating aggravated circulatory diseases, which lead to strokes or heart attacks and respiratory diseases such as bronchitis or pneumonia.
The charity estimated that last winter more than 25,000 older people died from preventable causes.
"Broadly put, for each degree colder it becomes, mortality rises by one to two per cent, underlining the urgent need to prevent such needless deaths," the spokeswoman added.
The problem with such "stats" is that they are so nebulous that there is no way to say for certain if you are measuring what you claim to be measuring or not. Sure, when you have a cold snap (or a heat wave) those who are already ill will be more at risk, but how can you come up with a number that accurately describes what happened? You really can't. I think I'd rather have the number of people who died specifically from hypothermia (or heat stroke), than just take a percentage of the numbers of total deaths and claiming that is reality.
This being said, the numbers form the French heat wave are just as suspect.
No comments:
Post a Comment