Running head: ASSESMENT OF STATISTICAL RESEARCH .

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Introduction

In spite of the effort made by statistical researchers in collecting and analyzing data

pertaining to various factors that impact us either directly or indirectly bin our day to day lives,

they may from time to time be faced by significant limitations. These limitations may

considerably compromise the relevance or validity of such researches. Researches enable

stakeholders in various sectors to be in a position to make a wide range of decisions. Wrong

statistical researches may therefore have considerable negative impact when used in decision

making. It is thus important to assess the validity of such data. This text aims to asses a sample

research on the estimated level of prevalence of HIV incidences among drug users in ninety-six

large US Metropolitan areas (Tempalski et al., 2009).

Discussion

The hypothesis used in the study was that HIV prevalence was high among injection drug

users and that a vast population of these individuals are present in urban areas. The targeted

sample candidates for the study comprised of drug users in ghetto drug dens in the selected urban

settings as well as other places characterized by the high population of injection drug users. The

selection of the sample was intended to achieve a high sample space owing to the difficulty in

locating the individuals being sought out for. All the selected individuals had to be in the usage

of injection drugs for a minimum period of a year.

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This research was fostered by the journal of Urban Health with an intention of not only

determining the prevalence’s but additionally putting in place measures to reduce and ultimately

eliminate HIV infection in injection drug users. The validity of the research was however

compromised by a number of factors including the use of historical data to data to determine the

population of injection drug users in the said states. The last censors on injection drug uses in the

96 cities was conducted in the year 1993 (Tempalski et al., 2009). This cannot be commensurate

to the time the research was conducted in 2009.Secondly the injection drug users who must have

been sampled included the needy ones who can barely afford the expensive drug they are hooked

on. Well of drug user go about their activities in private hence they are not easily sampled that

making the study inconclusive. The final limitation was the high population as well as the huge

size of the areas to be sampled thus limiting the ability of conclusively identifying all the

injection drug users in the focus states.

The absence of comparable and interurban data pertaining to HIV prevalence in IDUs

over time has also resulted in bias in the confounding variables as trends in such infection over

time cannot be determined thus the research did not effectively determine whether progress is

being made or not (Tempalski et al., 2009).

The research findings were however relatively significance in the determination of

relatively useful data on HIV prevalence levels in IDUs in the focus points but it equally

identified factors that led to variance in normal prevalence trends noted. The research had

overwhelming significance as it indicated that IDUs are more exposed to HIV (Tempalski et al.,

2009).
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References

Tempalski, B., Lieb, S., Cleland, C. M., Cooper, H., Brady, J. E., & Friedman, S. R. (2009). HIV

prevalence rates among injection drug users in 96 large US metropolitan areas, 1992–

2002. Journal of Urban Health, 86(1), 132-154.