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Rates for the job. Measures of disease frequency in palaeopathology
Author(s) -
Waldron Tony
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
international journal of osteoarchaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1099-1212
pISSN - 1047-482X
DOI - 10.1002/oa.1390010104
Subject(s) - paleopathology , medicine , population , disease , demography , pathology , environmental health , sociology
Measures of disease frequency are discussed and their use in palaeopathology illustrated with examples, both hypothetical and real. It is shown that prevalence rates are the appropriate rates to use when calculating the frequency of diseases in skeletal populations. The extent to which prevalence rates accurately reflect those in the living population from which the skeletons were derived is also considered and it is suggested that they are a reasonable approximation for diseases that do not shorten life span, but not for those that do. Finally, suggestions are made for dealing with missing data.