Archive for ONS
a decline in healthy life expectation [and a terrible graph]
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Statistics with tags COVID-19, healthy life expectancy, life expectancy, NHS, ONS, The Guardian, The Health Foundation, UK politics, United Kingdom on May 26, 2026 by xi'an
Nature likes official statistics
Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags Argentina, budget cuts, Demographic and Health Survey Program, Gates Foundation, India, INSEE, Malakoff, National Statistician, Nature, Office for National Statistics, official statistics, ONS, tribune, Trump administration, UK, United Nations, US politics, USA on April 5, 2026 by xi'an
Nature is (rightly!) concerned about official statistics around the World and ran a feature article on the topic in its issue of 12 March 2026. It stresses the multiple reasons for supporting a sound, independent, trustworthy national statistic office. The article explores the issues with four national statistic bureaux, for the US, the UK, India, and Argentina. (As my whole career has been associated with the French official statistics institute, INSEE, first as a student, then as a researcher, I would have liked to hear some external views on this institute, albei methinks the situation is not as dire here, despite a permanent reduction in staff over the past decade, to the point the landmark INSEE building in Malakoff has now been dismantled.)
The issue with the US system is predictably mixing political interference à la Trump and budget cuts again à la Trump. Referring to a 2025 ASA report. Longitudinal surveys have been terminated after running 30 years. While preserving its famous independence, the UK Office for National Statistics is facing mistrust from the public that in turn reduces the reliability of its labour survey, with a response rate of 13% in 2023! The UK Government has responded by creating a National Statistician…. Concerning India, well-known for its love of official statistics, the concern is again with the government interventions against NSC, and Argentina suffers from the same woes, Milei refusing an update of the way inflation is calculated by the national institute NDEC, leading to the departure of the current director (whose remote predecessor was put on trial by an earlier government!)
“Decisions based on incomplete or incorrect knowledge are invariably bad, even harmful. That is why the statistics that governments collect need to be as accurate and as verifiable as possible.”
In what appears (now?) as a common trend in Nature, a tribune on the same topic appeared in the following edition of 19 March 2026. With the call to “fix surveys”, in part battered by systemic underfunding and sapped by low answer rates. And the somewhat paradoxical complaint that private philanthropies like the Gates Foundation is supporting less worldwide surveys like the Demographic and Health Survey Program, which should be the responsibility of governments.
Scrapping Covid surveillance study would put public health at risk [by Silvia Richardson]
Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags COVID-19, Office for National Statistics, ONS, pandemic, Royal Statistical Society, RSS, statistical surveilance, Sylvia Richardson, The Guardian, United Kingdom on February 28, 2022 by xi'an
Royal Statistical Society president (and very dear friend) Sylvia Richardson published this tribune in the Guardian defending the preservation of a national surveillance system last week:
Sajid Javid is right to argue against scrapping the Office for National Statistics’ Covid surveillance study. Throughout the pandemic, national surveillance studies have provided invaluable information to support decision-making.
For any real-time health surveillance system to be reliable and cost-effective, it cannot rely solely on self-reported tests. These data sets are likely to be biased, as it is impossible to know how many people are also reporting their negative results and, if tests start to come with a cost, how many people simply aren’t testing. If we are to get reliable information about the prevalence of Covid, it is essential to maintain studies such as the ONS’s and React to allow statisticians to estimate infectiousness and the proportion of the population who are infected (including those without symptoms), as well as to identify new variants.
Abrupt disruption of a surveillance system is wasteful, will make tracking of prevalence meaningless and will put in jeopardy the future health of the public. If important surveillance studies must be scaled down, this cannot be led by arbitrary cost-cutting targets, but should be led by statisticians to ensure that studies continue to provide reliable information.
Quételet’s average (wo)man
Posted in Statistics, Travel, University life with tags Daily Telegraph, London, ONS, Quételet, World Statistics Day on October 15, 2010 by xi'anIn the EuroStar last morning, I got attracted by my neighbour headline’s about average and went to pick a spare copy at the head of the train:
The article is awfully written, mixing nonsensical figures (like “the average British woman, who is 40, enjoys an extra half-day work each week”!!!) with a few remarks about the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is supposed to celebrate the first World Statistics Day but there is very little to celebrate if this is the vision of statistics this day promotes. Are we back to Quételet‘s quest for the “average man”?!
