Talk:History of Somalis in Minneapolis–Saint Paul

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Autism

Undue weight was added on the purported autism rates of some Somali children in Minneapolis. The material is inappropriate for a number of reasons. First, it doesn't apply to the community as a whole but rather to a small, vulnerable subset of it. Second, the claim that Somali residents in Minneapolis had higher rates of disabling autism in their children compared to white children is something of an overstatement. The study actually indicates that the research team "found high rates of autism in two populations"; namely, among both Somali and white children in Minneapolis. The rates were also fairly similar (1/32 and 1/36, respectively) compared to those of Minneapolis' Hispanic and African American children (1/80 and 1/62, respectively). In fact, the Autism Speaks director indicates that on the whole, "white children are the most likely to have an autism diagnosis." Despite this, no comparable passage exists on any wikipage explaining the autism rates of the state's other allegedly "high rate" population. Third, the authors of the study themselves concede that they "did not examine children directly". Instead, they simply "reviewed the 2010 clinical and educational records of about 5,000 children ages 7 to 9 and made estimates" [1]. The figures are therefore extrapolations at that, not empirically observed study results. Middayexpress (talk) 14:41, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Perhaps I'll let the Medicine project take a look and see what they believe should be done (perhaps find scientific journals and/or other specialist sources that may better represent the study and what it means) WhisperToMe (talk) 05:07, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Whisper; I've been following this issue somewhat closely in the media (although I haven't kept up in the last week or so), expecting it would eventually show up on Wikipedia. At this (preliminary) point, IMO we don't have enough information for this issue to surpass WP:NOT (news), WP:RECENTISM and WP:UNDUE. (Please have a look at WP:MEDRS about how often the lay press gets it wrong and why we prefer not to use them-- also, at this point, we have primary studies, but no secondary and critical review of that work-- see for example the problems raised in the sources below.) So far, we have surveys that are subject to all kinds of errors, and researchers intrigued about what they might learn from a better analysis of a trend that has been observed and may or may not indicate that something is going on. The New York Times piece above actually doesn't do nearly as good of a job of explaining all of that as the Minneapolis papers did. I will try to re-locate other sources I've consulted, but at this preliminary point, we don't have much more than speculative news (and I'm not sure why this would belong in a "History" article anyway-- it's a developing current event). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:29, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

More sources:

  • Here is a source that explains some of the issues outlined by Middayexpress: [2]
  • mprnews.org has a lot of information (search on autism Somali), including this.
  • Star Tribune
  • Search PubMed for Somali autism and you will find five studies, including the speculation that there is a Vitamin D issue involved-- all of these, though, are primary studies unreviewed by secondary sources.
    • More on Vitamin D issue, but again, a news source that explains what researchers are trying to sort out.

In other words, there's a lot unknown about these reports, and the laypress isn't a good source for covering recent medical issues. I haven't re-located an even better source yet that explains all the problems and biases in what the laypress is reporting -- will post it when I find it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:30, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info and WP:MEDRS policy SandyGeorgia. It's as I had thought; both the rates and causation are uncertain. In any event, I agree that this history page probably wouldn't be the place for this anyway. If ever more concrete scientific evidence is established, I would like to work with you on this on the relevant autism main page. Middayexpress (talk) 14:54, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure where we might add this content. There's enough mention in the press of it that it might find a home somewhere on wikipedia, but I'm just not sure where yet. It would not go in the main autism article, because that is a broad, overview, Featured article, which uses only highest quality secondary sources, and this topic for now would assuredly be UNDUE there. The preliminary reports are all too speculative, with more unknowns than knowns, and subject to all kinds of bias. Yet fascinating in what a good controlled study might reveal about autism. The best I can think of for now would be to include brief mention in the Vitamin D section of the Causes of autism article, but that article is MEDRS-compliant, uses all secondary sources, no primary studies or lay press accounts. We could discuss on talk there whether to make an exception because of the press coverage the Somali issue has gotten. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:07, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds reasonable. Middayexpress (talk) 16:07, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Include other Muslim communities in Minnesota?

I wonder if it makes sense to broaden this article to include discussions of Somali communities in the smaller cities of Minnesota.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:36, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The page is on the Twin Cities. Also, please note that the actual federal report just indicates that Minnesota led the nation in the number of ISIS recruits, not any specific ethnic group [3]. This therefore cannot be extrapolated to any wider community. Most of the would-be Somali jihadists instead attempted to join the Al-Shabaab militant group [4]. National Intelligence also released the names of the 180 Americans that have tried to join ISIS, and most of the recruits were actually from other nations [5]. Soupforone (talk) 02:01, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Content claiming certian Christian charities are "human trafficking"

This is needless editorializing that does not belong on wikipedia. Why would it be added back after it was removed? Atumm (talk) 13:21, 23 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of the Somalis in Maine which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 01:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RfC

The title of this article is potentially impacted by the outcome of this Request for comment re: entries about ethnic groups in the United States. Page watchers are invited to participate in the ongoing discussion. Thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:49, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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