Washington Statistical Society
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November 2004

Contents:


The 2004 Morris Hansen Lecture

The Washington Statistical Society is pleased to announce the fourteenth in its annual series of lectures to honor the memory of Morris Hansen. This lecture series is made possible by a grant from Westat, where Morris Hansen was senior statistician for 20 years and serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors at the time of his death.

This year the Morris Hansen lecture series speaker is Dr. Jennifer Madans. Dr. Madans has been the Associate Director for Science, National Center for Health Statistics, since May, 1996, and is responsible for the overall plan and development of NCHS's data collection and analysis programs. Since Dr. Madans joined the Center, she has concentrated her research efforts on data collection methodology, health services research and chronic disease epidemiology. She has directed two national longitudinal studies (NHANES I Epidemiologic Followup Study and the National Nursing Home Followup Study) as well as the redesign of the National Health Interview Survey questionnaire. She was one of the designers of the DHHS Survey Integration Plan. Dr. Madans is a graduate of Bard College (B.A.) and the University of Michigan (M.A. and Ph.D., Sociology). She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University. She has served as a lecturer in the Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Department of Community and Family Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine and in the Department of Demography at Georgetown. She is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

The discussants will be Clyde Tucker of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Robert Hill of Westat. Nat Schenker of the National Center for Health Statistics will serve as this year's Chair.

Systems for classifying persons by race, ethnic background, and other attributes make it possible to compare population characteristics across data collection programs and over time. However, population changes make it necessary to update such systems periodically. To monitor population trends, bridges need to be developed that allow us to transition between system changes. The Office of Management and Budget's 1997 standards for the collection of data on race and ethnicity presented many challenges, especially because it allowed respondents to choose more than one race. The need for a bridging mechanism was particularly acute at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Calculating vital rates, a major NCHS program activity, requires data from the census for the denominators but data from state vital statistics offices for the numerators. Although the 2000 census adopted the 1997 standards, state vital statistics offices generally have not yet adopted them. Thus there is incompatibility between the race classifications used for the vital records and those used to estimate population counts. Bridging this gap required the development of strategies to modify data from one or both of the data sources, based on models for the relationship between race reporting under the new standards and the old ones, so that valid race specific rates could be calculated. In the course of this project, we analyzed multiple data sets addressing different aspects of multiple race reporting. This lecture will describe the approach taken by NCHS to build the bridge and the related infrastructure that supported the project. The importance of problem solving such as this to the mission of a statistical agency will also be discussed.

The lecture will be on Wednesday, November 17, 2004, from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm in the Jefferson Auditorium, USDA South Building, between 12th and 14th Streets on Independence Avenue S.W., Washington DC. The Independence Avenue exit from the Smithsonian METRO stop is at the 12th Street corner of the building, which is also where the handicapped entrance is located. Except for handicapped access, all attendees should enter at the 5th wing, along Independence Avenue. Please bring a photo ID to facilitate gaining access to the building.

The lecture will be followed by a reception in the Whitten Building, across Independence Avenue S.W.

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Mid-Atlantic Regional Probability & Statistics Day

November 13, 2004

This year's Mid-Atlantic Regional Probability and Statistics Day will be held Saturday, 13 November 2004, at the Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory, located approximately midway between Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC. This informal meeting provides an opportunity for professionals in academia, government, business and industry to meet and communicate recent findings and discuss common interests. Informal talks on all aspects of probability and statistics are invited, including discussions of preliminary and on-going work. Participation by graduate students is also encouraged. There will be several invited speakers in addition to the contributed talks.

For more information, contact:

Joseph D. Warfield
The Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory, Room 24-E135
Laurel, MD&nbps; 20723-6099
phone: (240) 228-5580/Washington and (443) 778-5580/Baltimore
e-mail: joseph.warfield@jhuapl.edu
fax: (240) 228-8240

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American Public Health Association and American Statistical Association Continuing Education Institutes

The APHA Epidemiology and Statistics Sections and the American Statistical Association are jointly sponsoring five CEI's at the upcoming 2004 APHA annual meeting in Washington, DC on November 6 and 7. We have been jointly sponsoring these courses with the Statistics Section for several years and the programs have been well received. They were developed in cooperation with the Statistics Section after an E-mail survey of the APHA Epidemiology Section was conducted.

  • CEI 1001.0, "Statistical Methods for State and Local Public Health Data"
    Michael A. Stoto, PhD
    Saturday, November 6, 2004, 9 am - 12:30 pm.

  • CEI 1009.0, "Multilevel Analysis in Public Health"
    Steven W. Raudenbush, EdD
    Saturday, November 6, 2004, 9 am - 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm - 5 pm.

  • CEI 2016.0, "Introduction to Spatial Epidemiology"
    Andrew Lawson, PhD, and Richard Hoskins, PhD
    Sunday, November 7, 2004, 8 am - 11:30 am and 2:30 pm - 6 pm.

  • CEI 2017.0, "Introduction to Statistical Methods for Longitudinal Research"
    Garrett Fitzmaurice, ScD, and Nan Laird, PhD
    Sunday, November 7, 2004, 8 am - 11:30 am and 2:30 pm - 6 pm.

  • CEI 2019.0, "Interpreting and Reporting Public Health and Medical Research: Techniques and 13 Key Questions"
    Tom Lang, MA
    Sunday, November 7, 2004, 2:30 pm - 6 pm.

For more information please review the APHA website at www.apha.org/meetings/cei

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Federal Committee On Statistical Methodology Statistical Policy Seminar

Achieving Statistical Quality in a Diverse and Changing Environment
December 15-16, 2004

The Seventh in a Series of Seminars Hosted by COPAFS (The Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics)

Participants will include federal statisticians, economists, and managers, as well as others in the broader statistical community who share an interest in the quality of federal data.

Support Provided by:

  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
  • Bureau of Economic Analysis
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics
  • Bureau of Transportation Statistics
  • Energy Information Administration
  • Environmental Protection Agency
  • National Agricultural Statistics Service
  • National Center for Education Statistics
  • National Center for Health Statistics
  • Social Security Administration
  • Statistics of Income Division of the Internal Revenue Service
  • U.S. Census Bureau

Topics:

  • Standards for Statistical Surveys
  • Agency Initiatives to Monitor Survey Quality
  • Recent Advances in Measuring Quality Assurance
  • Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?
  • Integrated Survey Designs: Analytical Enhancements Achieved Through Linkage of Surveys, Administrative and Secondary Data
  • Telephone Surveys in a Changing Environment
  • Incentives in Government Surveys: Practices and Perspectives
  • Web Surveys: A Research Agenda For a Changing Environment
  • Advisory Panels: Seeking user Feedback to Improve the Quality of Statistical Programs
  • Researcher Access to Confidential and Micro Data From Home Institutions
  • Data Mining: Policy Implications and Applications
  • Tools, Policy, and Procedures for Survey Improvement

Keynote Address: Richard Kulka, Research Triangle Institute

Location: The Holiday Inn Select, 8120 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, Maryland

Cost: $150.00 per person

For Further Information, Contact the COPAFS Office at:
Phone: 703-836-0404, Fax: 703-684-3410 and Email: copafs@aol.com

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SIGSTAT Topics for Fall 2004

November 10, 2004 - ODS Statistical Graphics, Speaker: Linda Atkinson

On an experimental basis in SAS 9.1, a number of SAS/STAT procedures support an extension to the Output Delivery System (ODS) to create statistical graphics as automatically as tables. This facility is referred to as ODS Statistical Graphics (or ODS Graphics for short). With ODS Graphics, a procedure creates the graphs that are most commonly needed for a particular analysis. Using ODS Graphics eliminates the need to save numerical results in an output data set, manipulate them with a DATA step program, and display them with a graphics procedure.

December 8, 2004 - PROC MIXED - Part 7: Generalized Linear Mixed Models, Speaker: Charlie Hallahan

We continue with the topic begun in October 2003. In the June 2004 meeting, the difference between general linear models and models using generalized estimating equations (GEE's) was covered. The available correlation structures in PROC GENMOD were discussed and GENMOD was used to fit a longitudinal data model. To wrap up this topic, the concepts behind generalized linear mixed models are discussed and a longitudinal data model is fit using the GLIMMIX macro.

SIGSTAT is the Special Interest Group in Statistics for the CPCUG, the Capital PC User Group, and WINFORMS, the Washington Institute for Operations Research Service and Management Science.

All meetings are in Room S3031 (Food Safety and Nutrition Room), 1800 M St, NW from 12:30 to 1:30. Enter the South Tower and take the elevator to the 3rd floor to check in at the guard's desk.

First-time attendees should contact Charlie Hallahan, 202-694-5051, hallahan@ers.usda.gov and leave their name. Directions to the building and many links of statistical interest can be found at the SIGSTAT website, www.cpcug.org/user/sigstat/

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Note From The WSS NEWS Editor

Items for publication in the January 2005 WSS NEWS should be submitted no later than November 30, 2004. E-mail items to Michael Feil at michael.feil@usda.gov.

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Click here to see the WSS Board Listing (pdf)
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