Measurement Uncertainty in Forensic Toxicology: Its Estimation, Reporting and Interpretation

All measurements, regardless of their purpose, context or quality, possess uncertainty. No measurement is performed with absolute perfection since all are approximations. Uncertainty, however, does not mean there is anything wrong or inappropriate with the results. Uncertainty is simply a measure of the confidence we have in our best estimate and results from limitations in our technology, our methods, our standards and our limited understanding of the property being measured. [Drosg] Uncertainty is a fundamental property of the natural world in which we live and work. Moreover, no measurement is fully interpretable within a given context until the full process generating the result is understood. The general additive measurement function observed in equation 1 illustrates this basic limitation of all measurements: