Special Graphic Post:
A Note on Infant Mortality Rates
The Dark Wraith invites careful consideration of the implications.
Published 4/10/2006 10:27:00 PM
Monday, April 10, 2006
Special Graphic Post:
The Dark Wraith invites careful consideration of the implications.
==↑Return to the top of the blog↑==
new visitors to The Dark Wraith Forums
<< 27 Comments Total
This is always a good way to really irritate a wingnut by tweaking the wingnut's nose - hard (metaphorically speaking, that is).
- oddjob
yeah - but the ones that live are the strong ones!
The one's that die were more likely to have been conceived in sin!
Infant mortality is even higher in the other countries if you count all the abortions!
And, if we had universal health care you might have to wait in line!
Well, this is just depressing.
Nice try, Dave.
In the next week or so, I plan to run a type of statistical analysis called "linear regression" to see if there's a simple correlation between the rate of infant mortality and certain other factors. Although some researchers have done this before, there are a couple of rarely considered parameters I want to try in a model. From just looking at the data, it looks like there's a pretty noticeable negative relationship between infant mortality rates and a couple of interesting factors.
I won't say any more than that until I can get the regressions run. If it looks like something interesting is coming out, I'll publish the results here first, of course.
And by the way, Dave, that big steak graphic at the top of your blog is enough to drive me to distraction. Every time I stop by your blog, I want to bring my barbecue along and get down to work.
It's late, and the Dark Wraith needs to stop thinking about food tonight.
Alas, the standard wingnut response runs along the lines of:
"The US tries to save all the poor premature babies, and counts them in their statistics, whereas the eeeevil Yuropeans abandon them in the streets and don't count them unless they survive to a year or so first."
So far, no evidence has ever been produced supporting this, but it is an Article Of Faith when infant mortality is mentioned in wingnut circles.
Here's a snip from an article that seems to be related to your post:
"Lucky Pawz opened almost three years ago and is one of a handful of businesses in the area that offers dog daycare services. The concept of dog daycare is similar to that of children's daycare. Dog owners, commonly referred to as "parents" by dog daycare owners, drop off their pooches before going to work and pick them up after."
It's all in an article entitled
"Daycares going to the dogs" at
http://tinyurl.com/lqjvr
Doggy daycare, Peter?!
Lord. I have these thoughts of some "parent" picking up his dog from the daycare center and having the director come out to speak with him.
Daycare Director: Mr. Cornspurt, do you have just a minute? We need to talk.
Mr. Cornspurt: What is it? Is something wrong with my little Fido?
Daycare Director: Well, we had a little incident today with Fido and his playmate, Arfie.
Mr. Cornspurt: Okay, give it to me straight.
Daycare Director: Now, we're not accusing Fido of being the instigator or anything like that, but we caught Fido out back rolling around in some doggy doo, and we're pretty sure it was Arfie's because she was right there laughing about it.
Mr. Cornspurt: Well, this doesn't sound all that serious to me; I mean, Fido's a dog, for God's sake!
Daycare Director: Mr. Cornspurt, please! Not in front of the children! We may know they're d-o-g-s, but that doesn't mean we have to demean them with such hurtful, anthrocentric words. And besides, we can't be letting them roll around in stinky stuff just because they have certain... er... instincts.
Mr. Cornspurt: Yes, I understand. I'll have a talk with Fido when we get home. It sounds to me like we're going to have a little time-out before supper. Maybe if he has to stay in his room all by himself with nothing but his Nintendo, his 48-inch TV, and his collection of Aeon Flux videos, he'll learn how to be more sociable with other... other...
Daycare Director: ...'furry people', Mr. Cornspurt.
Mr. Cornspurt: Yes. 'Furry people'. And thank you, Mrs. Wackermutt, for bringing this to my attention. Let's go, Fido! We need to stop at Cats-on-a-Spit for take-out on our way home!
The Dark Wraith probably needs to lay off the writing for a while, now.
My only theory would be that the high rate of drug and alcohol abuse among U.S. citizens would potentially increase US infant mortality rates above nations with relatively fewer "consumer" impulses. What about food or prescription drug use? Or career women waiting until later in life to conceive and then having difficulties...just thinking.
I was surprised to see Monaco so high up the list. If any country has the means to afford top notch State administered health care it is Monaco. I would assume the residents would demand it.
The Czech Republic also stands out significantly to me. To the point that I am inclined to think there is some under-reporting going on there.
-Cole
Good morning, Cole. Welcome to The Dark Wraith Forums.
You offer good observations. The commenter Phoenician in a time of Romans points to one issue that intersects a matter you note. Here in the United States, the rate of premature births has been rising for a number of years. One reputable medical site used the term "soaring" to describe the phenomenon. Although the rising incidence of premature deliveries has been recognized in other countries, if my data is correct the problem is more significant here than in many nations.
I should note, by the way, that the standard definition of "premature" birth is any delivery before the 37th week of gestation. Forty weeks is considered full-term. Not surprisingly, survival rates fall uniformly as premature deliveries occur further from that 37th week. If I recall correctly, the survival rate is, in fact, zero for births at or before 21 weeks of gestation.
I would not, however, discount the possibility that the Czech Republic and a number of other countries considered somewhat less developed have somewhat lower infant mortality rates. A great deal has to do with pre-natal and neo-natal care, but no insignificant factor is culture. Even in the absence of particularly advanced, institutionally delivered medical care, close extended families, adequate and appropriate sources of nutrition, and (not insignificantly) decent hygiene and a relatively abundant supply of unpolluted water are considerable factors in infant survival. So, too, are such factors as the rate at which women breast feed (at least for a short period) their infants and the extent to which infectious diseases in general are kept at bay at the level of the home and the surrounding neighborhood and community.
The causal factors are many, and sorting them out is the stuff of scientific research, which is in my judgment inadequately addressing basic questions so outrageously that we cannot even answer a simple question like, "Why is the United States ranked near the bottom of that list?"
Although there can be concerns about the numbers reported by one country or another in the rankings, the fact of the matter is that the United States, led as it is by a "Culture of Life" Republican and egged on by his "Culture of Life" social engineers, holds an utterly deplorable ranking in terms of infant mortality rate.
But then again, we do have the biggest and best military in the world, so I guess that makes up for the infant mortality rate.
The Dark Wraith trusts that the Republicans find the trade-off fair and reasonable.
Wraith,
Nice to know you stop by my blog!
Re: Doggy day care. I actually had a roommate who worked at one for a while. It's not as silly as it sounds, when you consider that dogs are pack animals and all too many of them are left alone all day while their owners are at work.
It really is cruel to the poor animals to leave them alone for 10-12 hours a day. They're not like cats. They really need some sort of animal (human or canine) companionship to stay psychologically healthy. At least have two dogs, so they can keep each other company.
I've known plenty of people who had a dog, were out of the house for a good 10-12 hours a day, and wondered why their dog was hard to deal with. Well, it's because the poor animal is going crazy!
I've known plenty of people who had a dog, were out of the house for a good 10-12 hours a day, and wondered why their dog was hard to deal with.
Part of why I've never owned a dog is because I'm out of the house for long stretches at a time, and I think it's cruel to a dog to leave it alone that way. It's an excellent way to end up with a messed up dog.
- oddjob
The Dark Wraith trusts that the Republicans find the trade-off fair and reasonable.
Yet another anecdote suggesting that for the "culture of life" folks "life" begins at conception and ends at birth......
- oddjob
Yeah, Biden was on Bill Maher last Friday and said that Republicans were great at telling you to be born and how to die, but aren't much help in between.
Ohh, Biden, the quintessential politician who says the right things on the talk show and then knows nobody's paying attention when the votes are cast in the Senate.
Biden, the quintessential politician
Tell me about it! I don't know who drives me crazier, Biden or Specter!
- oddjob
What I found interesting was that the world rate was nearly 49 per 1000 for the 226 locations listed, and in most cases, a higher death reate for males. Makes the difference in rates for 1 and 50 appear insignificant compared to issues in Africa.
Males die more rapidly than females regardless of what age cohort you examine. This even applies to the in utero age cohort.
- oddjob
Well, yes, OddJob, you are correct, and I should thank you for noting this.
The Dark Wraith is now feeling distinctively doomed.
Perhaps the most intriguing thing about that particular bit of info. is that it appears to apply to other mammals, too.
I can't remember where this occurs (wish I could!), but there's a fossil bed of mammoth tusks in what used to be (or still is) some kind of pit or hot springs (or something), a place where during the last ice age the vegitation would have greened up sooner in the spring, but also a place where foraging was potentially fatal.
All the tusks are of adolescent/young adult males.....
- oddjob
Good morning, OddJob.
What you are describing sounds very much like the The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, South Dakota, one of my favorite places to visit when I'm out that way. The site is an archaeological dig that's now housed inside a museum. You can actually walk way down into the dig site, where an unbelievable treasure trove of fossils is being recovered from what was, some 25,000 years ago, a big watering hole with dangerously steep slopes at the banks. Animals trying to drink there would slide in and drown.
Among the many fossils in the pit, which has now been dug down to a depth of dozens of feet, are those of many wooly mammoths, almost all of which were male adolescents!
On one of my visits, a woman giving information to the visitors made the comment that this is because, just like we observe among modern elephants, teenage male mammoths would frequently leave their herd and strike out on their own, exhibiting the very anthro quality of "teenage rebellion." She went on to quip that death in this ancient water pit was the price of their rebellious behavior.
When I had the opportunity, I noted to her that, whether or not "teenage rebellion" is indeed a biologically valid term, the behavior of the adolescent male elephants and mammoths is altogether rational and quite important: of principal importance is that their departure from the home herd ensures that inbreeding will not occur; and related to this is that the survivors will spread their genes to far-flung areas, thus ensuring stronger future generations. The risks, of course, are quite notable: the males who leave thereby end the benefits of continued learning from their older herd cohorts, and they expose themselves to great peril from the claws, teeth, and hands of predators. They also, perhaps not insignificantly, expose themselves to the risk of not finding a mate for years.
Anyway, your original comment about higher death rates among males across the animal kingdom is accurate. The problem is that it seems that the causal mechanisms vary according to age cohort group. In the case of fetal death rates, the factors don't seem to be related to decision-based risks taken, which does play at least some role in later age-cohort groups.
I should probably lay off this whole topic now. I'm getting wistful about my foray years ago into physical and cultural anthropology. Unfortunately, at the time I couldn't find a way to double-major in anthropology and astronomy, so I had to choose or face too many courses that didn't count toward both majors at once. (As fate would have it, in the end I had taken so many math courses that my adviser told me I'd completed all the requirements for the B.S. in math before I'd completed all the courses for the astronomy degree, so I ended up with the math degree, leaving along the wayside the astronomy, as well as anthropology, philosophy, and a couple of other love affairs.)
Oh, well.
The Dark Wraith leaves the herd to go teach for a while, now.
Thanks, DW, that's the place!
Oh, and your comments about astronomy reminded me of this story, which is below the fold on the front page of today's Boston Globe.
- oddjob
I've known plenty of people who had a dog, were out of the house for a good 10-12 hours a day, and wondered why their dog was hard to deal with.
Which is why my hubby and I have decided not to have any pets until we retire, and can be there.
so I ended up with the math degree, leaving along the wayside the astronomy, as well as anthropology, philosophy, and a couple of other love affairs.)
Sounds like me when I was going back to school. When I showed my advisor my list of courses I wanted to take, his comment : "The renaissance ended a long time ago, what kind of degree are you aiming at?"
the scientists who will use the Oak Ridge telescope believe extraterrestrials may be just as likely to communicate with high-intensity, tightly focused light beams carrying information as they are to use radio transmissions.
If the light beams are tightly focused, why would they be pointed at us?? Not that I don't heart SETI - I did their screensaver thingy for quite a while.
SB, they might be trying to drive the slime beetles (Agathidium bushi, Agathidium cheneyi, and Agathidium rumsfeldi) into a dark place; some bugs don't like light.
Good Morning, Dark Wraith.
Just a couple of thoughts...
Do you know if there's an inverse correlation between abortion rates and child mortality? It seems to me that the higher the abortion rate is then the fewer the number of children there will be who are born into unfavorable situations. Has the social stigma and relative difficulty for women in certain US states to get an abortion lowered the nations' abortion rates relative to that of the other countries on the list?
Also, could the higher premature birth rate in the US be due in part to mothers who are attempting to abort the old fashioned way - by starving themselves?
DW: Interesting post, but I don't know why everyone's so negative on the US of A. We sure put Cyprus in its place, don't we?
Loved your doggy daycare riff.
FWIW: Don't know how universal the phenomenon of females outliving males is in the animal kingdom, but I do know that in India men outlive women.
Good evening, Mr. Shakes.
I am collecting some data to see if I can do a decent regression analysis on the relationship between infant mortality rate and abortion rate. My suspicion is that a simple regression would suffer from omitted variables bias in the OLS (ordinary least squares) estimator for the coefficient on the abortion rate parameter unless I include at least some proxy for demographic changes over the period of analysis. I would probably also be remiss not to include an income distribution measure, as well.
If I can put together a model that has at least some integrity, I'll publish the results here; otherwise, I'll just grouse about the difficulties my own disdain for shoddy statistical analysis always seems to put in my way to doing interesting studies.
The grand study would be to run the analysis both across time and across countries, but that would be an awful lot like work, and I'm not entirely sure the results would make sense. In fact, if I were a betting man, I'd wager that the results would come out looking somewhat perverse, primarily because I'd still be omitting important parameters. An even worse scenario would be "multi-colinearity": none of the hypothesized causal factors by themselves show significant correlation with infant mortality rate, but taken together they have significant explanatory power.
That's when I would have to pull out some heavier mathematical guns, and then I'd be pawing in the ground trying to figure out what the results of the muscular approach were actually telling me.
I had that problem some years back when I thought I could separate out interrelated effects by a method that uses so-called "eigenvectors," but to this day I'll be hanged if I really know how those derived eigenvectors were actually related to the real situation I was studying. I had suspicions, but opening my pie hole to speculate would have been an open invitation to a hanging, what with the bloodlust academic sorts have anymore.
But that's all old history. I'm just a teacher these days.
And a blogger.
The Dark Wraith has a rather less stressful existence... at least until the next weirdness shows up at the door.
My suspicion is that a simple regression would suffer from omitted variables bias in the OLS (ordinary least squares) estimator for the coefficient on the abortion rate parameter unless I include at least some proxy for ...
I love it when you talk dirty, DW!
BACK! Back, I say!
The Dark Wraith should know better than to talk econometrics in a crowded room.