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Scottish Charity Register No. SC043760

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Questioning statistics

June 06 2010
Thanks for tackling the myth
 Dear Editor,

I thought 'Questioning 42' (Pavement, May) was very well argued, and it is a great relief to me that the nonsense around this particular statistic is being challenged. This is the kind of analysis that drives academics to distraction, as it has no proper statistical basis.

The individuals who died on the street as part of this 'pool' of people from which the mean figure was derived may have slept rough for 20 years or, at the other extreme, for one day. It is absurd to then project a mean age at which death occurs, as it implies that people are born, live and die, as rough sleepers. Happily, this is not the case. Being a rough sleeper is not a factual, incontrovertible, permanent characteristic such as being born in the borough of Tower Hamlets in 1958. It is a (hopefully brief) experience in an individual's life.

Thanks for challenging this myth, over which I have been tearing my hair out for some time!

Best wishes,

Jeremy Swain
Chief Executive, Thames Reach
< Rough count update Coalition plans >
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