TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2017//
TI  - Benford's law for quality assurance of manner of death counts in small and large databases
JO  - Journal of forensic sciences
A1  - Daniels, Jeremy
A1  - Caetano, Samantha-Jo
A1  - Huyer, Dirk
A1  - Stephen, Andrew
A1  - Fernandes, John
A1  - Lytwyn, Alice
A1  - Hoppe, Fred M.
SP  - 1326
EP  - 1331
VL  - 62
IS  - 5
N2  - To assess if Benford's law, a mathematical law used for quality assurance in accounting, can be applied as a quality assurance measure for the manner of death determination. We examined a regional forensic pathology service's monthly manner of death counts (N = 2352) from 2011 to 2013, and provincial monthly and weekly death counts from 2009 to 2013 (N = 81,831). We tested whether each dataset's leading digit followed Benford's law via the chi-square test. For each database, we assessed whether number 1 was the most common leading digit. The manner of death counts first digit followed Benford's law in all the three datasets. Two of the three datasets had 1 as the most frequent leading digit. The manner of death data in this study showed qualities consistent with Benford's law. The law has potential as a quality assurance metric in the manner of death determination for both small and large databases.<br><br>© 2017 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0022-1198
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.13437
ID  - ref1
ER  -