【英语科技】富士康自杀事件折射自杀数据问题

My print column this week examines the recent spate of suicides at Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.'s Shenzhen operations, and attempts to place the tragedies in context by comparing them to the overall suicide rate in China.

Such comparisons generally use the overall suicide rate in the country, though the rate in urban areas such as Shenzhen is far lower. 'The challenge here is that urban and rural rates get blended when we talk about a Foxconn,' financial blogger Paul Kedrosky, one of the commentators who examined national suicide rates, wrote in an email. 'After all, China has seen a massive influx of rural-urban migrants in the last decade, which muddies the question of who is urban and who is rural. If a high percentage of Foxconn employees are recent arrivals, which anecdotal data suggests, then a higher background suicide rate, more like the rural one, wouldn't be surprising.'

It may also be the case that other Hon Hai workers have killed themselves in a less public manner - not jumping to their deaths, as the 10 people thought to have committed suicide did. In other words, the true suicide rate among workers for the company may be higher than is known from media reports.

Even China's nationwide suicide numbers are debatable, further complicating the issue. 'They cover mainly the cities and more economically developed parts of China,' says Alexandra Fleischmann, a suicide researcher for WHO. 'The data hence should not be extrapolated to entire China.' Some studies suggest that many suicides go unclassified, because China doesn't have a complete death-registration system.

An NFL-commissioned study of rates of dementia among ex-players compared to the general population also was hampered by data-quality issues. For both the ex-players and Americans overall, rates came from self-reports by telephone. 'The comparison on self-reported diagnosis of memory-related disease is particularly inadequate,' said David Weir, one of the researchers and a research professor at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. 'The survey from which we took numbers for the general population grossly understates how much dementia there is out there. In fact, the rates reported by NFL players in our study are actually lower than the true rates experts know to be out there in the population from studies that measure it directly rather than relying on self-report.'

Hunt Batjer, the chair of the league's research committee, is seeking a better comparison. Football players 'have different life experiences, both physical as well as mental,' says Dr. Batjjer, chair of neurological surgery at Northwestern University's medical school.

我在本周报纸专栏中仔细分析了鸿海精密工业股份有限公司 (简称：鸿海精密)深圳工厂最近一系列的自杀事件，企图通过将这些自杀事件与中国整体自杀率进行对比来说明这些悲剧。

这样的比较通常使用全国总体自杀率，不过像深圳等城市地区的自杀率要低得多。美国著名风险投资家科德罗斯基（Paul Kedrosky）在电子邮件中写道，当我们谈及富士康时，难题在于城市和农村的自杀率混在了一起。科德罗斯基是分析国家自杀率的评论员之一。他说，毕竟在过去10年中中国出现了大规模的从农村到城市的移民，这混淆了谁是城市人，谁是农村人的问题。如果富士康雇员中很高的比例是近期进城的人，就像各种传闻数据所显示的那样，那么与农村自杀率更相似的较高自杀率也就不是那么出人意料了。

情况也可能是这样的，其他鸿海精密的工人自杀的方式不是那么轰动，不像那10个人那样以跳楼的方式自杀。换句话说，该公司工人的真实自杀率可能高于媒体公布的数据。

即使中国全国的自杀数据也是有争议的，这进一步使问题复杂化。世界卫生组织（WHO）自杀研究专家弗莱施曼（Alexandra Fleischmann）说，中国的自杀数据主要涵盖城市和经济更发达的地区，因此这样的数据并不能推断全中国的情况。一些研究暗示，许多自杀案件并未被归类为自杀，因为中国不具备完整的死亡登记制度。

美国橄榄球联盟（NFL）委托对退役球员较之普通大众痴呆率的研究也因数据质量问题而遭到质疑。退役球员及整体美国人的痴呆率都来自电话调查中的自我报告。密歇根大学社会学研究所（University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research）研究教授兼研究员之一的韦尔（David Weir）说，对记忆相关疾病自我报告诊断的对比相当不充分。调查中我们从大众中取得的数据极大地低估了痴呆数量，实际上在我们的研究中，美国橄榄球联盟公布的痴呆率实际低于专家们经过研究获知的大众的真实痴呆率，该研究直接衡量人数，而不是依赖自我报告的方式。

美国橄榄球联盟研究委员会主席巴杰（Hunt Batjer）正在寻求更好的对比。美国西北大学医学院神经外科主任巴杰博士说，橄榄球员有不同的生命体验，无论是在身体上还是在精神上。