Testing conditional independence in diagnostic palaeoepidemiology

Leprosy was a well‐known and dreaded disease in the Middle Ages. A substantial fraction of the adult population carried leprosy‐related lesions. Previous research analyzed the occurrence and implications of seven such lesions in samples of medieval skeletons. These analyses were carried out under th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of physical anthropology 2005-11, Vol.128 (3), p.586-592
Main Author: Boldsen, Jesper L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bone and Bones - pathology
conditional independence
Death
Denmark
Epidemiology
Europe - epidemiology
expression
Generalities
History, Medieval
Human remains
Humans
Leprosy
Leprosy - epidemiology
Leprosy - history
Leprosy - pathology
Methodology
Middle Ages
Organisation and history of research
Paleoanthropology
Paleopathology
Physical anthropology
Prehistory and protohistory
Prevalence
skeletal lesions
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Summary:Leprosy was a well‐known and dreaded disease in the Middle Ages. A substantial fraction of the adult population carried leprosy‐related lesions. Previous research analyzed the occurrence and implications of seven such lesions in samples of medieval skeletons. These analyses were carried out under the assumption of conditional independence among lesion scores. The present paper examines this assumption by developing a test based on the odds ratios and applying the test to three rural medieval samples from Europe: Tirup from the 12th–14th century AD in Jutland, Denmark; Refshale from the 12th–14th century AD on the island of Lolland, Denmark; and Lauchheim from AD 460–680 in southern Germany. Signs of nonzero prevalence of leprosy at death were found in all three samples: Tirup, 25.5% (95% CI, 17.2–34.6%); Refshale, 39.1% (95% CI, 25.5–54.7%); and Lauchheim, 16.2% (95% CI, 10.0–22.9%). It is shown that when leprosy is the prime factor creating variation in the lesion scores in and between samples, the assumption of conditional independence cannot be rejected. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
ISSN:0002-9483
1096-8644
DOI:10.1002/ajpa.20133