Do small samples underestimate mean abundance? It depends on what type of bias we consider.
Folia Parasitol (Praha)
; 642017 Jul 26.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28783034
ABSTRACT
Former authors claimed that, due to parasites' aggregated distribution, small samples underestimate the true population mean abundance. Here we show that this claim is false or true, depending on what is meant by 'underestimate' or, mathematically speaking, how we define 'bias'. The 'how often' and 'on average' views lead to different conclusions because sample mean abundance itself exhibits an aggregated distribution most often it falls slightly below the true population mean, while sometimes greatly exceeds it. Since the several small negative deviations are compensated by a few greater positive ones, the average of sample means approximates the true population mean.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Contexto en salud:
3_ND
Problema de salud:
3_zoonosis
Asunto principal:
Parásitos
/
Enfermedades Parasitarias
/
Parasitología
Límite:
Animals
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Folia Parasitol (Praha)
Año:
2017
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Hungria