Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 13, 2026

Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting Propensity Score using the Military Health System Data Repository and National Death Index
Published on: January 8, 2020
A Novel Method for Verifying War Mortality while Estimating Iraqi Deaths for the Iran-Iraq War through Operation
Shang-Ju Li1, Abraham Flaxman1, Riyadh Lafta2
1University of Washington School of Public Health, Department of Global Health, Seattle, Washington, United States of America.
Objectives:
We estimated war-related Iraqi mortality for the period 1980 through 1993.
Method:
To test our hypothesis that deaths reported by siblings (even dating back several decades) would correspond with war events, we compared sibling mortality reports with the frequency of independent news reports about violent historic events. We used data from a survey of 4,287 adults in 2000 Iraqi households conducted in 2011. Interviewees reported on the status of their 24,759 siblings. Death rates were applied to population estimates, 1980 to 1993. News report data came from the ProQuest New York Times database.
Results:
About half of sibling-reported deaths across the study period were attributed to direct war-related injuries. The Iran-Iraq war led to nearly 200,000 adult deaths, and the 1990-1991 First Gulf War generated another approximately 40,000 deaths. Deaths during peace intervals before and after each war were significantly lower. We found a relationship between total sibling-reported deaths and the tally of war events across the period, p = 0.02.
Conclusions:
We report a novel method to verify the reliability of epidemiological (household survey) estimates of direct war-related injury mortality dating back several decades.
More Related Videos
06:20Author Spotlight: Development of an Automated Camera-Based System for Real-Time Blast Overpressure Monitoring and TBI Risk Assessment in Military Training
Published on: December 6, 2024
09:37Evaluation of Respiratory Muscle Activation Using Respiratory Motor Control Assessment RMCA in Individuals with Chronic Spinal Cord Injury
Published on: July 19, 2013
Related Concept Videos
Actuarial Approach
Consider the example of a high-risk surgical procedure with significant early-stage mortality. A two-year clinical study is conducted,...
Life Tables
McNemar's Test