Background: Cause-of-death rankings are often used for planning or evaluating health policy measures. In the European Union, some countries produce cause-of-death statistics by a manual coding of death certificates, w...Background: Cause-of-death rankings are often used for planning or evaluating health policy measures. In the European Union, some countries produce cause-of-death statistics by a manual coding of death certificates, while other countries use an automated coding system. The outcome of these two different methods in terms of the selected underlying cause of death for statistics may vary considerably. Therefore, this study explores the effect of coding method on the ranking of countries by major causes of death. Method: Age and sex standardized rates were extracted for 33 European (related) countries from the cause-of-death registry of the European Statistical Office (Eurostat). Wilcoxon’s rank sum test was applied to the ranking of countries by major causes of death. Results: Statistically significant differences due to coding method were identified for dementia, stroke and pneumonia. These differences could be explained by a different selection of dementia or pneumonia as underlying cause of death and by a different certification practice for stroke. Conclusion: Coding method should be taken into account when constructing or interpreting rankings of countries by cause of death.展开更多
The goals of any major business transformation programme in an official statistical agency often include improving data collection efficiency,data processing methodologies and data quality.However,the achievement of s...The goals of any major business transformation programme in an official statistical agency often include improving data collection efficiency,data processing methodologies and data quality.However,the achievement of such improvements may have transitional statistical impacts that could be misinterpreted as real-world changes if they are not measured and handled appropriately.This paper describes a development work that sought to explore the design and analysis of a times-series experiment that measured the statistical impacts that sometimes occur during survey redesigns.The Labour Force Survey(LFS)of the Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS)was used as a case study.In the present study:(1)A large-scale field experiment was designed and conducted that allowed the outgoing and the incoming surveys to run in parallel for some periods to measure the impacts of any changes to the survey process;and(2)The precision of the impact measurement was continuously improved while the new survey design was being implemented.The state space modelling(SSM)technique was adopted as the main approach,as it provides an efficient impact measurement.This approach enabled sampling error structure to be incorporated in the time-series intervention analysis.The approach was also able to be extended to take advantage of the availability of other related data sources(e.g.,the data obtained from the parallel data collection process)to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the impact measurement.As stated above,the LFS was used as a case study;however,the models and methods developed in this study could be extended to other surveys.展开更多
Recent studies have documented declining trends of various groups of flower-visiting insects, even common butterfly species. Causes of these declines are still unclear but the loss of habitat quality across the wider ...Recent studies have documented declining trends of various groups of flower-visiting insects, even common butterfly species. Causes of these declines are still unclear but the loss of habitat quality across the wider countryside is thought to be a major factor. Nectar supply constitutes one of the main resources determining habitat quality. Yet, data on changes in nectar abundance are lacking. In this study, we provide the first analysis of changes in floral nectar abundance on a national scale and link these data to trends in butterfly species richness and abundance. We used transect data from the Dutch Butterfly Monitoring Scheme to compare two time periods： 1994-1995 and 2007-2008. The results show that butterfly decline can indeed be linked to a substantial decline in overall flower abundance and specific nectar plants, such as thistles. The decline is as severe in reported flower generalists as in flower specialists. We suggest that eutrophication is a main cause of the decline of nectar sources [Current Zoology 58 （3）： 384-391, 2012].展开更多
文摘Background: Cause-of-death rankings are often used for planning or evaluating health policy measures. In the European Union, some countries produce cause-of-death statistics by a manual coding of death certificates, while other countries use an automated coding system. The outcome of these two different methods in terms of the selected underlying cause of death for statistics may vary considerably. Therefore, this study explores the effect of coding method on the ranking of countries by major causes of death. Method: Age and sex standardized rates were extracted for 33 European (related) countries from the cause-of-death registry of the European Statistical Office (Eurostat). Wilcoxon’s rank sum test was applied to the ranking of countries by major causes of death. Results: Statistically significant differences due to coding method were identified for dementia, stroke and pneumonia. These differences could be explained by a different selection of dementia or pneumonia as underlying cause of death and by a different certification practice for stroke. Conclusion: Coding method should be taken into account when constructing or interpreting rankings of countries by cause of death.
文摘The goals of any major business transformation programme in an official statistical agency often include improving data collection efficiency,data processing methodologies and data quality.However,the achievement of such improvements may have transitional statistical impacts that could be misinterpreted as real-world changes if they are not measured and handled appropriately.This paper describes a development work that sought to explore the design and analysis of a times-series experiment that measured the statistical impacts that sometimes occur during survey redesigns.The Labour Force Survey(LFS)of the Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS)was used as a case study.In the present study:(1)A large-scale field experiment was designed and conducted that allowed the outgoing and the incoming surveys to run in parallel for some periods to measure the impacts of any changes to the survey process;and(2)The precision of the impact measurement was continuously improved while the new survey design was being implemented.The state space modelling(SSM)technique was adopted as the main approach,as it provides an efficient impact measurement.This approach enabled sampling error structure to be incorporated in the time-series intervention analysis.The approach was also able to be extended to take advantage of the availability of other related data sources(e.g.,the data obtained from the parallel data collection process)to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the impact measurement.As stated above,the LFS was used as a case study;however,the models and methods developed in this study could be extended to other surveys.
文摘Recent studies have documented declining trends of various groups of flower-visiting insects, even common butterfly species. Causes of these declines are still unclear but the loss of habitat quality across the wider countryside is thought to be a major factor. Nectar supply constitutes one of the main resources determining habitat quality. Yet, data on changes in nectar abundance are lacking. In this study, we provide the first analysis of changes in floral nectar abundance on a national scale and link these data to trends in butterfly species richness and abundance. We used transect data from the Dutch Butterfly Monitoring Scheme to compare two time periods： 1994-1995 and 2007-2008. The results show that butterfly decline can indeed be linked to a substantial decline in overall flower abundance and specific nectar plants, such as thistles. The decline is as severe in reported flower generalists as in flower specialists. We suggest that eutrophication is a main cause of the decline of nectar sources [Current Zoology 58 （3）： 384-391, 2012].
