Social Statistics: Mathematics Meets Policy (UMAP)

What percentage of the labor force is unemployed? What percentage of household budgets is devoted to shelter? How rapidly is the cost of medical care rising? Answers to such questions are staples of news reporting in all developed nations. If the answers are disturbing, the voters will hold the government in power responsible. The technical subject of statistics, which provides the means to produce and interpret trustworthy data, thus affects and is affected by both public policy and the political environment. The topic in this essay is how the science of statistics and the underlying mathematics of probability, in combination with uniform policies and practices, make timley and accurate data possible.

Table of Contents:

INTRODUCTION

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF SAMPLING
What Shall We Measure, and for Whom?
Why Sample?
How to Sample Badly
Random Sampling

POPULATION INFORMATION FROM A SAMPLE
Mathematics to the Rescue
Statistical Confidence
Strata, Clusters, and Stages

THE PROBLEMS OF PRACTICE

NOTES

ABOUT THE AUTHORS