Measuring Mortality

In May 2007, two publications that focused on measuring mortality were circulated. The first, "Armed Conflict as a Public Health Problem: Current Realities and Future Directions," USIPeace Briefing, summarized a presentation that discussed the different methodologies for measuring conflict-related deaths. These variable approaches have resulted in significant discrepancies between datasets generated by public health and epidemiological studies as compared with studies reported in the social science literature.

Because of the debate such discrepancies set off in the scientific community, Human Security Research reported on a number of conflict-related mortality studies undertaken in specific countries. It also highlighted a paper produced by the Humanitarian Practice Network, entitled "Interpreting and using mortality data in humanitarian emergencies: A primer for non-epidemiologists" (September 2005).

The second publication, "Health and Mortality of Internally Displaced Persons: Reviewing the Data and Defining Directions for Research" from the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, points to a dearth of health information relating to IDPs. It cites a 2002 CRED report that reviewed existing public health research and "found that roughly 50 percent of studies reviewed were for refugee populations, 35 percent had residents as subjects, and only 15 percent were on IDPs." To address this gap, the Brookings-Bern report set out to "review existing data on mortality and health indicators for IDP situations, identif[y] some of their limitations, and identif[y] an agenda for future research."

Posted in Publications.