Stage Migration
One real-world example of the Will Rogers phenomenon is seen in the medical concept of stage migration. In medical stage migration, improved detection of illness leads to the movement of people from the set of healthy people to the set of unhealthy people.
Because these people are not healthy, removing them from the set of healthy people increases the average lifespan of the healthy group. Likewise, the migrated people are healthier than the people already in the unhealthy set, so adding them raises the average lifespan of that group as well. Both lifespans are statistically lengthened, even if early detection of a cancer does not lead to better treatment - because it is detected earlier, more time is lived in the "unhealthy" set of people.
Read more about this topic: Will Rogers Phenomenon
Famous quotes containing the word stage:
“A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)