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Telling tails explain the discrepancy in sexual partner reports
1Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK.
Nature
|September 30, 1993
Summary
Sexual behavior surveys are reliable, with discrepancies in partner numbers explained by a few individuals reporting many partners. Improvements can enhance data accuracy for disease modeling.
Area of Science:
- Sociology
- Epidemiology
- Statistics
Background:
- Surveys of sexual behavior often report more female partners for men than male partners for women.
- This discrepancy is frequently attributed to response and sampling biases in survey data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the cause of the discrepancy in reported sexual partners between men and women.
- To assess the reliability of sexual behavior survey data.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of reported lifetime sexual partners from survey data.
- Comparison of partner ratios across different ranges of reported partners.
Main Results:
- The ratio of male to female reported partners significantly decreases when excluding individuals with a high number of partners.
- For respondents with fewer than 20 lifetime partners, the ratio shifts from 3.2:1 to 1.2:1.
Conclusions:
- The anomaly in sexual partner reporting is primarily driven by outliers (individuals with numerous partners).
- Sexual behavior surveys are generally reliable, with potential for improved precision through outlier analysis.
- Enhanced data accuracy can improve modeling of sexually transmitted disease (STD) spread, including Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
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