{"id":351,"date":"2012-04-29T10:10:29","date_gmt":"2012-04-29T10:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/health\/?p=351"},"modified":"2021-10-22T07:05:01","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T07:05:01","slug":"unearthing-some-trends-in-the-organ-donor-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/helpmeinvestigate.com\/health\/2012\/04\/29\/unearthing-some-trends-in-the-organ-donor-register\/","title":{"rendered":"Unearthing some trends in the organ donor register"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I last posted<\/a>, I\u2019ve been immersed in donor data \u2013 trying to tease out some interesting trends and perhaps, more importantly, attempting to find out what\u2019s behind them.<\/p>\n

I have data going right back to the computerised register\u2019s inception in 1994. And without too much investigation, I can see that take-up has massively plateaued in the last three or four years; a huge peak in the mid-90s has calmed to a mere undulation, even with extra publicity for the register and the mushrooming of joining methods.<\/p>\n

1999 was an anomaly year, where the number of new joiners completely collapsed. Now, if there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve learnt since I started my data journalism studies is that a weird result, an outlandish pattern can\u2019t be taken at face value. There\u2019s normally a reason for it. And it didn\u2019t take me long to find one in this case \u2013 a software error, which was widely documented<\/a> in the press.<\/p>\n

Another stand-out observation is that people aged under 35 comprise the lion\u2019s share of the register. However, this requires another pinch of statistical salt. Age is given as \u2018age at registration\u2019 – this remains static, though our real age doesn’t. I will have to look at age of new joiners each year, rather than cumulatively, to get a true measure of the break-down.<\/p>\n

Three more quick things I\u2019ve noticed…<\/p>\n