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Data revision of the day -- good news this time
The United Nations' top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents prepared for the announcement...the latest estimates, due to be released publicly Tuesday, put the number of annual new HIV infections at 2.5 million, a cut of more than 40 percent from last year's estimate, documents show. The worldwide total of people infected with HIV -- estimated a year ago at nearly 40 million and rising -- now will be reported as 33 million.
Here is the full story, which also explains the sampling errors behind the earlier estimates.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 20, 2007 at 07:40 AM in Medicine | Permalink
Comments
The UN is as accurate at estimating variables as the Chinese government?
Glad we're trusting them to estimate so many important things like the effects of AGW.
Posted by: Jay at Nov 20, 2007 8:36:04 AM
These are a different group of scientists from the ones coming up with the climate forecasts, right? I'm assuming these guys and gals are the B-listers... I'm sure they keep the top notch folks for the climate change work.
Posted by: Bob at Nov 20, 2007 9:32:06 AM
As somebody who does projection estimates for a living, I'm (a) sympathetic to the measurement problems involved in trying to be accurate, and (b) not surprised at the political pressure to get a particular number up or down.
Who's got the grant to estimate the number of homosexuals in Iran?
Posted by: ZBicyclist at Nov 20, 2007 9:38:14 AM
Indeed one of the measurement problems is not even addressed within the scope of the article: What constitutes HIV infection (or an AIDS case)? This is not constant, especially across political boundaries.
Epstein's comment was exactly Root-Bernstein's point in '93.
Posted by: rluser at Nov 20, 2007 9:54:10 AM
Why would the scientists at the UN be an exception to the general rule of incompetence and dishonesty?
Posted by: dearieme at Nov 20, 2007 10:29:11 AM
How long will the AIDS last?
AO Credits
Dofus kamas
Posted by: silkroad gold at Nov 21, 2007 2:47:51 AM
How long will the AIDS last?
AO Credits
Dofus kamas
Posted by: silkroad gold at Nov 21, 2007 2:48:17 AM
It would be good news, but do you really believe it? The UN's nearly annual revision of methodology for estimating HIV/AIDS makes it nearly impossible to say anything at all about the direction and severity of the epidemic...
The fact that we overstated numbers ten years ago does not mean the epidemic is in decline. If population-based testing is so much more accurate, what exactly are they comparing these numbers to, in order to conclude that things were worse ten years ago?
Posted by: pnj at Nov 21, 2007 9:06:50 AM
Posted by: 翻译公司 at Feb 25, 2008 8:41:40 AM
Posted by: Alii at Apr 3, 2008 9:03:41 PM
