Committee on National Statistics

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This award continues NSF support for the core activities of the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT), a standing committee of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council (NAS-NRC). The committee works to improve, over the long term, the statistical methods and information on which public policy decisions are based. It strengthens, directly and indirectly, the development of data for social, behavioral, and economic science research, makes such data more accessible for research, and furthers the development of methods for measurement, collection, and analysis for research and other purposes. On its own initiative, or at the request of NSF or another agency, the committee will identify problem areas in which statistical questions are important to public policy and carry out studies within these areas by itself or by convening panels of other experts. Most of the Committee's studies will fall under three major themes: improving and furthering the development of data on social and economic conditions, including health, social welfare, and the environment; improving statistical methods and their applications; and integrating and coordinating national statistics. The Committee will select specific areas for study, develop expert panels or workshops, select participants, review study activities and reports, and widely disseminate study results that have been rigorously peer reviewed under NAS oversight.Established in 1972 at the recommendation of the President's Commission on Federal Statistics, the committee fills a critical gap as an integrative force for a highly decentralized federal statistical system, in which research interests often have lower priority than other concerns. Representing more than a series of research studies, the committee's work also is a unique process of intellectual development that is critical in a decentralized statistical system. The committee provides leadership over interdisciplinary areas by bringing methodologically oriented statisticians and quantitatively oriented social, behavioral, economic, and physical scientists together with federal agency staff to work on problems important to public policy. The committee will continue to (1) improve national statistics and further the development and application of statistical methods for research, (2) link the science research communities and federal agencies that depend on scientific methods, (3) involve academic scientists in research to improve statistics that are used and produced in the federal government, and (4) provide forums for the exchange of information and ideas.