On Area Specific Uncertainty Measures in Small Area Estimation

这项研究项目将探索评估小面积估计的新方法。对与小地理区域有关的统计数据的需求越来越大。这些小范围的估算被政策制定者用来评估国家的福祉，制定公共政策，并在各种政府项目中分配资金。这些估计数的使用者一般有兴趣了解与其特定小面积有关的不确定性，而不是平均不确定性衡量标准。然而，文献中提出的大多数小区域估计的不确定性度量在研究变量中并不是特定于区域的。该项目将开发新的不确定度测量方法，并检查它们在测量研究变量中特定区域的不确定度方面的有效性。该项目的重点将是对学生和职业生涯早期研究人员的指导。新的研究成果将被纳入一个研究生课程和一个关于小面积估计的短期课程。将开发软件来实施新的技术，并将向公众开放。这项研究项目将检验调整后的最大似然法在获得研究变量中特定于小区域的估计的可靠不确定性度量方面的多功能性，该方法在某些小区域问题中已被发现有用。研究人员将进行基于设计的模拟和真实数据分析，以了解拟议的不确定性措施的稳健特性。评估新方法的数据将来自人口普查和家庭调查数据。作为支持调查和统计方法研究的联合活动的一部分，该项目得到了方法学、测量和统计方案和一个联邦统计机构联盟的支持。

This research project will investigate new ways to evaluate small area estimates. There is a growing demand for statistics related to small geographic areas. These small area estimates are used by policymakers to assess the well-being of a nation, develop public policies, and allocate funds in various government programs. Users of these estimates generally are interested in understanding the uncertainty that is relevant to their specific small area as opposed to average uncertainty measures. However, most of the uncertainty measures proposed in the literature for small area estimates are not area specific in the study variable. This project will develop new uncertainty measures and examine their effectiveness in measuring area specific uncertainty in the study variable. A focus of the project will be on the mentoring of students and early-career researchers. The new research results will be incorporated into both a graduate course and a short course on small area estimation. Software will be developed to implement the new techniques and will be made publicly available.This research project will examine the versatility of the adjusted maximum likelihood method, already found useful in certain small area problems, in obtaining reliable uncertainty measures of the estimates that are small area specific in the study variable. The investigator will conduct a design-based simulation and real data analysis in order to understand the robust properties of the proposed uncertainty measures. Data for evaluating the new methodology will be drawn from census and household survey data. The project is supported by the Methodology, Measurement, and Statistics Program and a consortium of federal statistical agencies as part of a joint activity to support research on survey and statistical methodology.