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  • 1.  Three items of possible interest

    Posted 01-21-2018 21:14
    1. Request for information from the Chief Statistician of the U.S. Nancy Potok: The Chief Statistician of the United States and the Statistical and Science Policy Branch (SSP) in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seek to establish priorities and coordinate research efforts across the Federal Statistical System to focus on improving federal statistics…. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/01/12/2018-00400/request-for-information
    2. The National Academies' Committee on National Statistics released its report, Federal Statistics, Multiple Data Sources, and Privacy Protection: Next Steps, the second report from its panel on multiple data sources for federal statistics. The first was Innovations in Federal Statistics: Combining Data Sources While Protecting Privacy, released in January 2017.
    3. Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science (OSAC) Behind-the-Scenes Look all-day meeting and webcast on February 20: http://www.cvent.com/events/what-is-osac-up-to-a-behind-the-scenes-look/event-summary-4f9ee68bbe5c420ca53791febee19958.aspx. I include this because of the long-term effort to involve more statisticians in OSAC. I hope you have seen the calls for applicants in the past. This could be a good chance to learn more about OSAC. 2019 ASA President Karen Kafadar is one of the presenters. 


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    Steve Pierson
    Director of Science Policy
    American Statistical Association
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  • 2.  RE: Three items of possible interest

    Posted 01-22-2018 08:36
    Steve - thank you! My work on human rights and justice analytics has found a great deal of unevenness in the content and quality of data from government sources. I can never say enough good things about the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), who are a lynchpin of human rights and justice analytics. While many other government agencies do excellent work, the data from some is less helpful. This may be only my personal experience, attributable to my markedly limited abilities, but I have found Justice Department data both incomplete and difficult to use. As one example, research into the economic conditions under which human trafficking flourishes - supporting the identification of undetected centers of activity - is helped by regressors from Census and BLS but hindered on the outcome side of the models by poor Justice Department data. You can be sure they will be hearing from me.

    I encourage others working with federal government data to use this links Steve Pierson has provided to let the office of the Chief Statistician know what is working and what needs to be improved! 



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