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Survivorship bias

Drawing conclusions from visible successes while overlooking cases that failed or disappeared.

Published 04 August 2026Updated 04 August 2026

Survivorship bias arises when the observed sample contains only the people, products, or strategies that made it through a selection process. Look for the missing failures and compare the full starting population, not only the survivors.

Sources

Cochrane Risk of Bias Tools

Cochrane / 2023 / Website

Bias assessment reference for evidence review.