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Abstract
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In Reply We thank Drs LaFleur and Miranker for their review of our Research Letter1 and for their interest in the field of migratory drowning. We strongly support additional scientific investigation in this emerging field, and we applaud LaFleur and Miranker for their attention to this important issue.
Regarding the differences in our findings, we do not feel that our results are comparable with those of LaFleur and Miranker due to differences in our methodology. In contrast to the inclusion criteria specified by LaFleur and Miranker in their Letter, our review of the MMP data was not limited to results from California and Texas. We included entries from all US states along the southwest border, as well as entries from the Mexico side, which would likely explain the differences in our findings. Additionally, to be as conservative as possible, we limited our results to deaths specifically categorized as drownings, further obfuscating any comparisons between our results.1 Last, we did not review or edit the MMP database for duplicate entries, as this was beyond the scope of our work and would have introduced selection bias to our study.2 Instead, we addressed the potential for error in the MMP by providing a detailed description of the data collection methodology used by the MMP and by calculating an average source quality rating for all data entries included in our review. We also cited the quality of the MMP data source as a major limitation in our discussion.
Language: en |