ABSTRACT
In 1981, O. S. Miettinen and J. D. Wang introduced what they called the mortality odds ratio as an alternative to the proportional mortality ratio (PMR), about which they expressed a number of reservations. Firstly they argued that the PMR was not a quality with any intrinsic interest, being used only as a surrogate for the standardised mortality ratio, which they considered to be a more useful and informative measure. In palaeoepidemiology it is not possible to carry out mortality studies, but it is reasonable under some circumstances to carry out proportional morbidity studies and calculate a morbidity odds ratio to compare the frequency of two conditions. When comparing the frequency of disease between populations, use the population size in the denominator. However, occasional uncertainties arise about the denominator, and this may be particularly the case with skeletal assemblages. Another way of examining data without using denominators is by means of ranking.
